Ursula Von der Leyen: Europe made a “strategic mistake” by moving away from nuclear energy

“Europe made a strategic mistake by moving away from a reliable and affordable source of low-emission energy“Von der Leyen said in a speech at the Nuclear Energy Summit organized by France and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which takes place today in Paris.

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In this framework, the German conservative revealed the keys to a new European strategy to accelerate small modular reactors (SMR) with the aim of putting this technology into operation in the early 2030s.

The new financial guarantee of 200 million euros seeks to reduce risks for investors in low-carbon nuclear technologies, Von der Leyen said, and specified that these funds will come from the Emissions Trading Scheme of the European Union.

The strategy, Von der Leyen said, also includes the creation of regulatory sandboxes to test innovative technologies and collaboration with Member States to harmonize rules and streamline authorization procedures.

Brussels also wants to strengthen industrial cooperation to develop European value chains in the field of nuclear fuel and related technologies.

According to Von der Leyen, the EU already has important advantages, such as half a million highly qualified workers in the nuclear sector and a leading position in innovation related to modular reactors.

“We now have the ambition to progress rapidly and on a large scale so that Europe becomes a global hub for new generation nuclear energy.“Von der Leyen stressed, who recalled that the current war in the Middle East reminds”with brutality” Europe’s vulnerabilities with respect to fossil energies.

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Faced with the current dependence on fossil fuel imports, Von der Leyen advocated developing her two locally produced energy assets: nuclear energy and renewable energies.

In his opinion, these two sources could guarantee energy independence, security of supply and industrial competitiveness of the continent, provided that more investments are made in electrical networks, storage capacity and flexibility of the energy system, he assured.

German politics assured that the issue of electricity prices “structurally too high“has become”crucial” for the economic future of the European Union. In 1990, a third of the block’s electricity came from nuclear energy and now it is only 15%, he said.