nucleareurope participates in World Nuclear Fuel Cycle conference

On 15 April 2026, nucleareurope Director General Emmanuel Brutin participated in the World Nuclear Fuel Cycle conference, organised in Monaco by the World Nuclear Association (WNA) and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). As part of the event, Emmanuel intervened in a fireside chat discussion alongside Framatome’s Senior Executive Vice President Lionel Gaiffe and WNA Director General Sama Bilbao y León, who moderated the exchanges.

In his intervention, Emmanuel highlighted the role of nuclear fuel cycle companies in Europe, and discussed the current policy framework, stressing the importance of supporting the ramp up of European fuel manufacturing capacities.

“As installed nuclear capacity in Europe is set to grow from around 100 Gigawatts (GW) to close to 150GW by 2050, building up resilient fuel cycle value chains will be key to the continent’s energy sovereignty” noted Emmanuel, adding that policy actions are vital to ensure that fuel cycle companies are able to build up their capacity and respond to the growing demand.

Although Emmanuel welcomed recent positive developments, such as last year’s EIB loan to Orano for the extension of the Georges Besse 2 uranium enrichment plant, he stressed that the current policy framework needs to evolve – for example through the inclusion of uranium conversion and enrichment as an enabling activity under the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy – to further support investments in the European nuclear fuel value chain.

Emmanuel concluded his intervention by calling on the European Commission to rapidly put forward its proposals to reduce reliance on Russian imports under Repower EU, in order to provide a long-term vision and encourage investments in domestic capacities.