The building of nuclear reactors with EIB financing is still off the table.

May 24, 2024 The sector is still waiting on fresh funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support its planned expansion, even though a leaked copy of the bank's roadmap revealed nothing new or substantial regarding nuclear financing.In response to the leak, Yves Desbazeilles, Director General of NuclearEurope, the Brussels-based society for the defense of nuclear power, told CarbonPulse last week that "the European Investment Bank is open to financing for nuclear."The EIB does state that it will assist "R&D for small modular reactors (SMRs)" in the paper outlining its work plan for 2023–2027.

Desbazeilles contended that the revised statement leaves open "several other" options for EIB funding, including building reactors; however, no such mention appears to be present in the final language.The references in the document, according to a number of industry observers who spoke with Euractiv, are no more important than those in the existing roadmap (2021–2025), which already specifies R&D assistance for nuclear fission and fusion but says nothing about energy generation.neutrality towards technology Since European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke favorably of the technology during the Nuclear Summit (NES) in Brussels in March 2024, financing nuclear power has been a hot topic in Brussels. The nuclear sector, together with a number of national governments, has been pushing the EIB to boost nuclear power in recent months.