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newcleo

newcleo operates in the nuclear energy sector for the generation of safe, clean and sustainable energy through the design, construction and commissioning of SMRs, and fast, lead-cooled Generation IV (Gen-IV) reactors, so called AMR-LFRs.

Lobbying Activity

Response to EU taxonomy - Review of the environmental delegated act

4 Dec 2025

newcleos response to this consultation focuses on the following economic activities: 4.26: Pre-commercial stages of advanced technologies to produce energy from nuclear processes with minimal waste from the fuel cycle. 4.27: Construction and safe operation of new nuclear power plants, for the generation of electricity or heat, including for hydrogen production, using best-available technologies. In addition, building on the recommendations of Ministers and high-level representatives of the EU Nuclear Alliance, as well as the European Investment Banks Energy Sector Orientation, which highlighted the need to support the nuclear fuel cycle in line with RePowerEU including additional infrastructure for the management of radioactive waste and spent fuel we request the inclusion of Advanced Nuclear Fuel Recycling and Reprocessing as a Stand-Alone Economic Activity in the EU Taxonomy Delegated Acts. Establishing a dedicated activity category would enhance predictability for investors, strengthen Europes industrial capacity in this strategic domain, and reinforce the EUs strategic autonomy in the nuclear sector. Please refer to the attachment for the full details of the contribution.
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Response to Future development and deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in Europe

3 Dec 2025

Achieving the strategic objective of deploying Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) across the EU by the early 2030s requires coordinated action on several interconnected priorities. Establishing shared European infrastructure for high-flux fast neutron irradiation is fundamental to support EU-led research and innovation, and this initiative must be underpinned by dedicated financial instruments and clearly defined implementation timelines to ensure timely delivery. Equally critical is the development of EU-based fuel cycle technologies to strengthen energy sovereignty and enhance security of supply, reducing dependence on external sources and reinforcing strategic autonomy. At the same time, targeted measures are needed to reinforce the nuclear industrial supply chain by identifying critical capability gaps and supporting the development of robust manufacturing capacity across Europe. Harmonizing safety and licensing frameworks for AMRs is crucial for accelerated deployment across Member States. This includes establishing sequential licensing frameworks for SMRs and AMRs, and encouraging Member States to adapt national processes so that designs already assessed in one country require only limited additional work in others. Concrete actions must also ensure workforce readiness through coordinated training initiatives implemented under both national and EU frameworks, addressing the anticipated skills gap in the nuclear sector. None of these technical and industrial measures can succeed without a fundamental step change in financing for SMRs. This requires, first and foremost, an expansion of EURATOM's scope and budget to provide appropriate and accessible EU funding mechanisms that fully respect technological neutrality. Beyond this, nuclear energy must gain access to European financing instruments from which it is currently excluded, with dedicated financial measures established across the entire value chain, from R&D through deployment to market maturity. These measures must include de-risking mechanisms such as CAPEX grants and revolving financial instruments offering favourable conditions, including lower interest rates and public guarantees. Without such comprehensive financial support, attracting the necessary long-term private investment will prove challenging, potentially compromising security of supply. The forthcoming SMR Strategy must therefore provide clear guidance, a streamlined regulatory environment, and targeted incentives to secure Europe's leadership in next-generation nuclear technologies. We call on the Commission to establish a comprehensive EU Strategy on Advanced Modular Reactors, complementing the SMR Communication with a time-bound action plan featuring defined milestones, dedicated resources, and calibrated measures. This strategy should guide the Commission's actions throughout 20252026, ensuring ambition translates into measurable progress. Please refer to the attached file for the full contribution.
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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – performance of the EU budget

11 Nov 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, reaffirming its commitment to advancing the EU's vision for a safe, sustainable, and strategically autonomous energy future. We support the Commission's proposal to enhance accountability through a strengthened performance framework that tracks EU budget expenditure according to its contribution to climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation and resilience, environment, and social objectives. We appreciate that Annex I recognizes nuclear fission energy (intervention field 248) as contributing 100% to climate change mitigation objectives. However, several inconsistencies persist. First, nuclear should be treated on equal footing with renewables and listed under Electricity Generation rather than a separate category. Second, the nuclear fuel cycle including reuse, recycling, and fuel cycle closure should be explicitly included with 100% contribution to climate change mitigation. Further clarification is needed regarding hydrogen production. While renewable sources receive 100% classification, low-carbon sources (which may include nuclear) receive only 40%. Given that nuclear energy is a net-zero source with lifecycle emissions comparable to renewables, this differentiation does not reflect nuclear-based hydrogen's actual climate performance. Nuclear should therefore be decoupled from the "low-carbon hydrogen" category and included in a dedicated "net-zero hydrogen" category with 100% CCM coefficient allocation. Similarly, while the Regulation includes heat from renewable sources (100%), it omits nuclear-produced heat entirely. A dedicated intervention field for nuclear heat production should be established and recognized at 100% contribution to climate change mitigation. Finally, R&D expenditure on nuclear fission receives only 40% classification, whereas other net-zero technologies receive 100%. To ensure a level playing field, nuclear fission R&D should be reclassified to 100% contribution to climate change mitigation objectives. Our detailed contribution is enclosed in the attached document for your consideration.
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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – EU funding for competitiveness

11 Nov 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, reaffirming its commitment in advancing the EU's vision for a safe, sustainable, and strategically autonomous energy future. We support the Commission's proposal to establish the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), which, by consolidating previous fragmented instruments and adopting a technology-neutral framework, addresses a systemic gap in EU innovation support: the absence of continuous financing across the full technology readiness and commercialization spectrum. Its strategic focus on clean energy technologies and industrial decarbonization reflects the alignment between competitiveness and decarbonization objectives, recognizing that European industrial leadership requires technological primacy in the clean transition. The ECF proposal does not contain explicit references to nuclear technologies, but through cross-references to the NZIA, IPCEI, and alignment with the Clean Industrial Deal, the ECF establishes a financing architecture within which nuclear can be positioned as part of the EU's strategic net-zero technology framework. This positive regulatory foundation must, however, be translated into operational certainty. The ECF's eligibility criteria remain insufficiently defined, positioning nuclear in an ambiguous zone of implied but unconfirmed access. To operationalize its technology-neutral mandate, nuclear energy must be explicitly designated alongside renewable technologies among eligible investments. In parallel, it is essential that the next ECF InvestEU Instrument does not follow the same structure as the previous regulation, which clearly excludes nuclear from the scope of the fund. With explicit inclusion and appropriate instrument design, the ECF could function as a catalytic mechanism for the research, development, and commercialization of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs), thereby revitalizing European industrial and technological competitiveness in the nuclear sector. Our detailed contribution is enclosed in the attached document for your consideration
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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – EU funding for competitiveness

7 Nov 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, reaffirming its commitment to advancing the EU's vision for a safe, sustainable, and strategically autonomous energy future. We support the Commission's proposal to strengthen Horizon Europe, which remains the cornerstone of the EU's research and innovation framework, mobilising investment across the entire R&I chain while addressing strategic priorities such as clean transition, decarbonisation, digitalisation, security, and resilience. However, a fundamental asymmetry continues to undermine this ambition. While the proposed Horizon framework explicitly includes fusion research, nuclear fission remains excluded, confined instead to the separate Euratom Research and Training Programme in accordance with Article 4 of the Euratom Treaty and Annex 1, which delineates the areas of activity covered exclusively by the Euratom framework. This exclusion is not experienced by other strategic clean technologies, which can access Horizon's substantial funding. Against this backdrop, we urge the Commission to close this gap in the 2028-2034 MFF by opening Horizon/FP10 innovation actions to nuclear fission, particularly Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) making them also eligible for Moonshot projects alongside the fuel cycle and by turning Horizon-Euratom synergies into co-funded, cross-eligible calls. Furthermore, it is essential that support from the European Innovation Council (EIC) critical for developing and scaling up deep tech and disruptive innovation from research to scale-up through a range of instruments including financial ones be extended to mid-cap entities, enabling industrial-scale players to access the funding mechanisms necessary for capital-intensive innovation.
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Response to Roadmap for artificial intelligence and digitalisation for energy (RAID-E)

3 Nov 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, reaffirming its commitment to advancing the EU's vision for a safe, sustainable, and strategically autonomous energy future. We support the Commission's intention to address the growing electricity demand from data centers in the EU. Meeting this exponential growth while reducing prices, phasing out fossil fuels, and ensuring a just green and digital transition requires urgent action and nuclear energy, particularly advanced reactors, offers precisely these qualities. Nuclear energy, specifically SMRs and AMRs, provides solutions uniquely suited to data centers' distinctive operational requirements: 24/7 reliable, decarbonized energy. Beyond reliability, SMRs and AMRs offer transformative deployment advantages. Their modularity and compact dimensions enable installation in close proximity to data centers, dramatically reducing transmission and grid connection costs while allowing co-investment in shared infrastructure such as interconnection, cooling systems, and security optimizing capital expenditure and achieving lower LCOE. To this end, Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) between data center operators and nuclear facilities represent an essential enabling instrument. We strongly encourage the Commission to prioritize nuclear energy integration in its Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in the Energy Sector, recognizing it as essential for enhancing Europe's competitiveness, achieving digital sovereignty, and meeting climate objectives.
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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – implementing EU funding with Member States and regions

31 Oct 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, reaffirming its commitment to advancing the EUs vision of a safe, sustainable, and strategically autonomous energy future. We support the Commissions proposal to reform Cohesion Policy through the introduction of the new National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs), which offer a valuable opportunity to embed technological neutrality directly into EU territorial and regional programming. Compared to the current framework where Cohesion Funds have excluded nuclear fission from their scope the proposed NRPPs represent a significant step in the right direction. The draft Regulation rightly highlights the need to strengthen Europes industrial base and build resilient supply chains in net-zero and critical raw materials technologies. Importantly, it no longer includes an explicit exclusion clause for nuclear fission, giving Member States the possibility to consider nuclear fission projects particularly those contributing to clean energy generation, industrial resilience, and R&I within their national plans. However, building on the clear alignment between the NRPPs specific objectives and the Net Zero Industry Act, the inclusion of nuclear fission should be explicitly clarified in the Regulation itself. Making this reference explicit would provide legal certainty for Member States, ensure policy coherence with the NZIA framework, and firmly uphold the principle of technological neutrality across all eligible clean energy technologies.
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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – implementing EU funding with Member States and regions

28 Oct 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, reaffirming its commitment to advancing the EU's vision for a safe, sustainable, and strategically autonomous energy future. We support the Commission's ambition to promote greater cooperation on cross-border energy projects a critical enabler of energy affordability, industrial competitiveness, and strengthened energy security across the Union. We emphasize the importance of ensuring that these projects will include all low-carbon technologies listed under the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which are essential for achieving the EU's decarbonization goals while maintaining technological leadership and industrial sovereignty. Please find our detailed feedback and recommendations in the attached document.
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Meeting with Anna Panagopoulou (Cabinet of Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas) and Confederazione Generale dell'Industria Italiana and

17 Oct 2025 · Competitiveness in Italian Automotive Industry

Response to Revision of the EU’s energy security framework

13 Oct 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this public consultation as a stakeholder in the EUs safe and sustainable nuclear industry. We strongly support the Commissions initiative to revise the EU energy security framework, with the aim of ensuring that Europes energy system remains secure and resilient in the face of new and increasingly complex challenges namely, strengthening the Unions energy independence to prevent the impact of potential future energy crises on citizens and businesses, and enabling the transition towards a decarbonised and increasingly electrified energy system. Please find our detailed feedback and recommendations in the attached document.
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Response to Heating and cooling strategy

9 Oct 2025

newcleo (a European innovative company developing advanced lead-cooled fast reactors (LFRs) with the mission to deliver safe, low-carbon, and clean energy) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence. We support the Commissions ambition to decarbonise the heating sector and emphasise the critical role advanced nuclear technologies can play in providing continuous, low-carbon, and cost-predictable heat. By supplying high-temperature heat to district heating networks and energy-intensive industries, nuclear solutions strengthen energy security, enhance industrial competitiveness, and help Europe achieve its climate and decarbonisation objectives. Please find the detailed contribution attached.
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Response to Electrification Action Plan

9 Oct 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this call for evidence, reaffirming its commitment to advancing the EUs vision for a safe, sustainable, and strategically autonomous nuclear industry. We fully support the Commissions ambition to accelerate cost-effective, system-friendly electrification across the Union a critical enabler of energy affordability, industrial competitiveness, and strengthened energy security. Please find herewith newcleos contribution on enabling affordable electrification.
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Meeting with Ditte Juul-Joergensen (Director-General Energy)

7 Oct 2025 · SMRs, AMRs, PINC, new MFF

Response to European Climate Law amendment

12 Sept 2025

newcleo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this public consultation on the European Climate Law amendment as a stakeholder in the EUs safe and sustainable nuclear industry. Please find our position paper attached.
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Response to Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act

7 Jul 2025

We welcome the Commissions initiative to establish the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act (IDAA) under the Clean Industrial Deal. Energy-intensive industries are at the core of Europes strategic value chains and economic sovereignty yet face urgent decarbonisation challenges in a context of rising global competition and reducing energy costs. Achieving climate neutrality while safeguarding industrial competitiveness will require the full mobilisation of all net-zero energy solutions. In this regard, alongside renewables, nuclear energyand particularly Small and Advanced Modular Reactorsmust be recognised as a strategic pillar of the EUs industrial decarbonisation framework. The Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act has the potential to transform the EUs industrial landscapeif all viable clean technologies are empowered to contribute. To this end, we respectfully urge the Commission to: Explicitly recognise nuclear energyalongside renewablesas a strategic decarbonisation enabler; Include SMRs and AMRs in EU-level funding, permitting, and industrial cluster planning frameworks; Promote phased licensing models to facilitate safe and timely deployment. A more comprehensive contribution on this topic is attached for your consideration. We thank the Commission for this important initiative and remain available for further dialogue and technical engagement.
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Meeting with Alexandr Hobza (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné)

3 Jul 2025 · The fusion energy financing related aspects

Meeting with Raffaele Fitto (Executive Vice-President) and

1 Jul 2025 · 4th generation nuclear energy and European competitiveness.

Meeting with Koen Van De Casteele (Director Competition) and

19 May 2025 · Exchange on the eligibility of nuclear projects for public funding

Meeting with Eva Schultz (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu)

23 Apr 2025 · EU nuclear skills landscape and the NECTAR initiative

Meeting with Elena Arveras (Cabinet of Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque), Philippe Thill (Cabinet of Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque)

10 Apr 2025 · Exchange with Newcleo on the financing of small modular lead-cooled fast reactors

Meeting with Miguel Jose Garcia Jones (Cabinet of Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra)

8 Apr 2025 · Discussion on the role of nuclear energy towards the decarbonisation goals of the Union

Meeting with Witold Willak (Head of Unit Economic and Financial Affairs)

19 Feb 2025 · Newcleo is working to design, build and operate advanced Gen-IV modular nuclear reactors. The company wishes to present its activities.

Meeting with Manuel Aleixo (Cabinet of Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva)

28 Jan 2025 · R&I Policy and Initiatives

Meeting with Stefano Grassi (Cabinet of Commissioner Kadri Simson), Thor-Sten Vertmann (Cabinet of Commissioner Kadri Simson)

1 Feb 2024 · Nuclear energy technologies, SMRs