Nucleareurope stresses need for support to all nuclear technologies at Baltic Nuclear Energy Forum

On 20 March 2026, Nucleareurope Director General Emmanuel Brutin participated in the Gdańsk-held Baltic Nuclear Energy Forum. The Forum brought together leading nuclear industry representatives to discuss the sector’s future development.

As part of the event, Emmanuel participated in a panel discussion on global experience in the development of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technologies. He specifically discussed developments in SMR technologies at European level, the role of financing and the current policy framework.

“The objective is to develop and deploy the first SMRs in Europe in the 2030s” highlighted Emmanuel, stressing that in order to accelerate this development, an enabling policy framework at EU level is vital to support access to finance, regulatory harmonisation, and the ramp up of the supply chain.

Emmanuel then noted that beyond SMRs, all nuclear technologies will be needed to decarbonise our energy system while ensuring security of supply, energy affordability and competitiveness. As such, it is key for policies to support new technologies, such as SMRs, but also large nuclear new build as well as long-term operation of existing power plants.

Emmanuel concluded his intervention by stressing that despite positive evolutions in EU policy in recent years, it remains essential that future policies put nuclear and renewables on an equal footing and adopt a fully technology neutral approach. For example, existing nuclear exclusions from EU funds should be removed, and nuclear should no longer be treated as a transitional technology under the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy.