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Proxima Fusion

Fusion is the ultimate clean energy source, and Proxima Fusion aims to revolutionize the energy landscape with its QI stellarator approach.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Didier Millerot (Head of Unit Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

9 Dec 2025 · Exchange views on recent and forthcoming EU policy developments in fusion energy, particularly in the context of the upcoming EU Fusion Strategy and to see how fusion energy could be incorporated in the EU Taxonomy

Response to EU taxonomy - Review of the environmental delegated act

26 Nov 2025

Proxima Fusion welcomes the Commissions initiative to refine and simplify the technical screening criteria of the Climate and Environmental Delegated Acts. This review offers an opportunity to address emerging technologies whose characteristics differ materially from existing categories within the Taxonomy. One such case is fusion energy, which is currently grouped under nuclear energy despite its fundamentally different risk profile, environmental characteristics, and regulatory implications. Fusion does not rely on chain reactions, cannot melt down, and produces no long-lived high-level radioactive waste. It is an inherently safe technology and would need to be explicitly named within the energy sector activities. Fusion therefore requires a separate activity category with tailored, proportionate technical screening criteria that reflect: its absence of chain reactions or meltdown pathways low and short-lived activation products lack of uranium fuel cycle no need for deep geological repositories its strong climate mitigation potential. The current ambiguity creates legal uncertainty for project developers, investors and public authorities, and risks discouraging private capital at a crucial moment when Europe is accelerating its competitiveness in net-zero technologies. Consequently, we recommended adjusting the technical screening criteria which are currently tailored to fission reactors and cannot be meaningfully applied to fusion projects. Many of the existing criteria are irrelevant or scientifically inapplicable to fusion. Applying them as written creates legal uncertainty, disproportionate burdens, and a misalignment with the simplified, evidence-based approach the Commission is now pursuing. Moreover, we encourage the Commission to consider the following targeted, proportionate amendments aligned with the goals of this initiative: Clarify requirements for early-stage fusion energy technologies, ensuring they remain proportionate and aligned with the precedent set for other emerging technologies already in the Taxonomy (e.g., green hydrogen, CCS and ocean energy systems). Ensure consistency with the forthcoming delegated act on simplification of DNSH criteria and sustainability disclosures, so that fusion developers face neither disproportionate nor misaligned reporting requirements. Mandate consultation with the commercial fusion industry to ensure that the screening criteria reflect up-to-date scientific understanding and the sectors realistic technological trajectory in Europe. Recognizing fusion as a distinct Taxonomy activity (separate from fission) will: enhance legal certainty for companies and investors support access to green finance, including green bonds and EU financial instruments that rely on Taxonomy alignment bolster Europes technological competitiveness in a field where the EU seeks leadership ensure that fusion is assessed on its own scientific merits, not through criteria tailored to fission encourage the scale-up of European fusion companies, enabling progress toward climate-neutral, dispatchable, non-intermittent clean energy Fusion shares the same strategic relevance as other emerging clean technologies already included in the Taxonomy. The purpose of the Taxonomy Regulation is to ensure environmental robustness and a credible pathway to scalability. Fusion meets this criterion.
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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – EU funding for competitiveness

16 Sept 2025

Please find our response in the attachment.
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Response to General revision of the General Block Exemption Regulation

2 Sept 2025

Proxima Fusion, a Munich-based energy company, is a spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. We are developing stellarator-based fusion power plants. Our work sits at the intersection of energy resilience, industrial competitiveness, and climate policy. Fusion is a capital- and time-intensive technology, where access to fast, reliable public support, including State aid under the GBER, is essential to bridge the innovation gap. Proxima Fusions activities are eligible under several existing provisions: Article 22 (Aid for start-ups) Article 25 (Aid for R&D projects) Articles 42 - 43 (Aid for the promotion of renewable energy and electricity) However, it is precisely the cross-cutting nature of fusion, and similar deep-tech innovations, that highlights the need for targeted improvements. Critical net-zero technologies that span multiple eligibility categories should benefit from: Higher aid intensities, potentially exceeding 70% for first-of-a-kind projects Prioritised treatment for technologies aligned with EU strategic interests Streamlined approval pathways to accelerate deployment and scale-up Key challenges Although the GBER has improved over time, several obstacles remain for first-of-a-kind and net-zero technologies: Overlapping eligibility rules make it unclear how to classify projects, which slows national decision-making. The current format of the GBER contains complex eligibility rules and unclear definitions which can lead to difficulties, for both companies and national authorities, in determining which provision best fits their cross-sectoral projects. Furthermore, definitions provided for "innovation" or "sustainable technologies" are outdated or too vague, leading to inconsistent application across Member States. The GBER process comes with a high documentary burden. Even without formal notification, companies must still: Provide extensive technical, financial, and environmental documentation Prove the incentive effect Produce benchmarking data, which is often impossible for technologies such as fusion that lack market comparators The application of GBER often involves long internal reviews, delays, legal consultations, and repeated clarifications with regional and national bodies. Inconsistent implementation: Some Member States use GBER proactively; others are more conservative, leading to a fragmented and unpredictable support landscape for projects with cross-border scope. Our recommendations To address the current challenges we recommend the following: Prioritise critical net-zero technologies with high strategic value Introduce fast-track procedures and higher aid intensities for first-of-a-kind technologies that address multiple GBER objectives Enable broader support for cross-sectoral deep-tech projects, including those without direct market comparators Clarify eligibility Update and clarify definitions Include illustrative guidance or use cases for projects Align GBER revision with broader EU competitiveness goals including the Green Deal Industrial Plan, the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), the forthcoming Start-up and Scale-up Strategy and the European Innovation Act The GBER revision should enable faster support for large-scale, cross-border industrial projects, even when they are not part of a formal IPCEI, by offering comparable aid intensities and simplified approval processes. Reduce administrative burden for frontier technologies Simplify documentation requirements, especially where benchmarking is impractical Streamline the assessment of the incentive effect for companies developing technologies with long time horizons or infrastructure needs Support coherent implementation across Member States y issuing practical implementation guidelines to ensure consistent application especially for complex or capital-intensive technologies.
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Response to European Innovation Act

25 Jul 2025

Proxima Fusion welcomes the ambition of the European Innovation Act to create an innovation-friendly Single Market and remove structural barriers holding back European deep-tech scale-ups. We strongly support the goal of reducing regulatory fragmentation and increasing access to research infrastructure, finance, and talent across borders. These barriers are especially evident for highly capital-intensive, IP-driven companies like ours, developing next-generation energy technologies with global relevance. We emphasise the need to coordinate this initiative with the upcoming 28th regime for startups and scale-ups. Both aim to create optional, harmonised EU frameworks for innovative companies to operate, raise capital, and grow more easily across the Single Market. This should extend to critical enablers such as employee ownership schemes, innovation-friendly procurement, and access to public research infrastructures. Access to research and technology infrastructures should be treated as a systemic enabler. For deep-tech and industrial innovators, one of the most underused levers is the ability to access publicly funded R&I outputs. The Innovation Act should tackle the fragmentation and opacity of national IP policies and technology transfer practices. We support the Commissions initiative to develop a common EU framework for the commercialisation of public research, with clear incentives and principles to facilitate industry access and follow-on innovation. The focus should be on reducing transaction costs, increasing predictability, and actively matching public R&I with private-sector demand, especially in strategic sectors. The Act should also strongly emphasise the need for cross-border regulatory sandboxes or testbeds for high-risk, high-reward technologies, particularly where national licensing regimes diverge. This could help address the innovation-regulation disconnect that slows deployment of breakthrough technologies such as fusion energy. Finally, coordination mechanisms between the EU and Member States are urgently needed to streamline funding and infrastructure access, as well as to align regulatory decisions and reduce legal uncertainty around permitting, safety standards, and IP enforcement. An EU-level forum for innovation policy coordination could help operationalise this. The European Innovation Act is an opportunity to strengthen the EUs deep-tech competitiveness and technological sovereignty. We urge the Commission to ensure the Act is bold, coherent with complementary initiatives, and tailored to the realities of scaling transformative industrial technologies in Europe.
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Response to 28th regime – a single harmonized set of rules for innovative companies throughout the EU

11 Jul 2025

Proxima Fusion strongly supports the European Commissions initiative to create a harmonised 28th regime for start-ups and scale-ups. As a science-based, capital-intensive deep-tech company aiming to commercialise fusion energy, we face daily the practical consequences of legal fragmentation across the EU. Despite being headquartered in Germany, our operations, investor base, talent pool, and supply chain span multiple Member States. The absence of a unified corporate legal framework is a barrier to scaling. We welcome the Commissions recognition that this regime must go beyond simplified incorporation procedures and address critical dimensions such as a common corporate legal framework, labour, and tax law. These are areas where the current patchwork of national rules imposes hidden costs and legal uncertainty on innovative companies seeking to establish and grow their operations in multiple EU countries. Such inefficiencies reduce speed, raise legal costs, and ultimately diminish our competitiveness. A new, unified legal form should also aim to level the playing field on stock-option taxation, deepen EU capital markets by enabling later-stage growth and IPOs, and enhance the EUs strategic autonomy in critical technologies by retaining talent and investment within the Union. Labour law harmonisation should be interpreted broadly to include talent mobility and skills recognition. Today, fragmented visa procedures and inconsistent treatment of third-country nationals pose real barriers to cross-border hiring and talent retention. We also see merit in an optional, digital-by-default EU company type with a recognisable brand, trusted by investors and business partners alike. This would send a strong signal that the EU is serious about enabling innovation and entrepreneurship. We encourage the Commission to ensure that this new regime supports both early-stage start-ups and later-stage scale-ups with different needs including flexible equity structures, digital capital increases, and simplified procedures for cross-border mobility. Finally, we urge the Commission to design the 28th regime with global investment in mind. Venture and growth investors seek clarity and simplicity. A credible EU-wide regime with standardised, interoperable digital tools such as the European Business Wallet and EU Company Certificate would reduce due diligence burdens and unlock capital that is today sidelined by complexity. We commend the Commission for pursuing this long-overdue reform as Europe cannot afford to miss another decade of start-up and scale-up growth due to internal fragmentation.
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Response to Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act

8 Jul 2025

Proxima Fusion welcomes the Commissions initiative to accelerate industrial decarbonisation through a dedicated legislative instrument. The Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act (IDAA) rightly focuses on energy-intensive sectors that are traditionally difficult to decarbonise but are fundamental suppliers to strategic industries in Europe. To be effective, the IDAA must go beyond procedural fixes. It must directly address structural weaknesses and support the technologies that will power deep industrial decarbonisation in the coming decades. Industrial sectors covered by the IDAA rely on high-temperature heat and continuous, reliable electricity. Many of these processes cannot run on intermittent renewables alone. This is a major bottleneck in decarbonisation. Fusion offers a clean, high-capacity power source that will underpin the energy system that allows many of these industries to switch to clean processes without driving up prices or causing volatility on the grid. We offer the following recommendations: 1. Include upcoming technologies to future-proof the Act: Fusion promises abundant, dispatchable, zero-carbon energy. This is a transformative solution for hard-to-electrify industrial sectors. The IDAA must be technology neutral to avoid narrowing its impact by focusing on certain decarbonization solutions, many of which are already losing competitiveness to third-country manufacturers. The Act should ensure that permitting and infrastructure access frameworks are technology-agnostic but inclusive of fusion's needs. 2. Consider the fast pace of global innovation: The Act should establish a rapid deployment framework for clean industrial pilots, including fusion, and create a fast-track instrument for high-impact, strategic projects. As private fusion energy projects in China and the US are rolling out their first demonstrators in 2027 and grid connection is expected to follow in the 2030s, we urge the Commission to include fusion as a strategic enabler and ensure that associated funding mechanisms (including the future Decarbonisation Bank) are open to European fusion demonstrators and industrial deployment projects. 3. Consider tomorrows industrial needs: Define actions to overcome structural barriers: grid congestion, storage limitations, and overreliance on variable renewables constrain electrification. The Act should account for these systemic limitations and embed support for emerging clean firm power technologies, from fusion to next-generation geothermal and advanced nuclear, in industrial cluster planning, investment and lead market creation. 4. Support lead markets that reward deep decarbonization, not just incremental efficiency gains: The proposed lead markets should prioritise ultra-low or zero-carbon energy inputs, including fusion in the medium term. EU labels, procurement rules, and demand-side incentives must avoid lock-in to transitional technologies. The Act should define criteria for deep decarbonisation readiness and align lead market instruments accordingly. 5. Streamline permitting for clean energy infrastructure, including fusion pilot and demonstrator plants: Fusion faces similar bottlenecks as other clean energy and industrial projects. The IDAA should explicitly extend streamlined procedures to privately led fusion demonstrators, in line with the Net-Zero Industry Act and the forthcoming Fusion Strategy. A proportionate, risk-informed, and coordinated regulatory framework is essential to de-risk private investment and enable timely deployment. 6. Ensure funding instruments and the future Decarbonisation Bank are fusion-compatible: Industrial decarbonisation will require large volumes of clean, firm electricity, which fusion can supply. Funding mechanisms must be designed with a forward-looking lens and the eligibility rules must include private fusion ventures.
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Response to Evaluation on the operation of the Innovation Fund - 2025

7 Jul 2025

The EU Innovation Fund is a vital instrument for accelerating breakthrough climate technologies. However, its current design is overly focused on near-term deployment. This risks undermining Europes competitiveness in fast-developing, high-impact technologies such as fusion energy, which will reach commercial deployment within the next 10 to 13 years. While fusion energy is formally eligible under the IF, a number of structural misalignments effectively exclude fusion developers. These include unsuitable timelines, investment ceilings, and funding instruments that do not match the capital needs or maturity profile of fusion demonstration projects. As a result, European fusion innovators are left without a viable route to EU-scale funding, even as competitors in the US, UK, and China receive major public support. To fix this, the Innovation Fund should be adapted to the specific needs and characteristics of fusion energy. Our position paper, attached as an annex to this consultation, outlines five concrete recommendations to make the Fund fusion-ready: 1.Recognize fusion as a strategic clean energy technology: Fusion is currently grouped under nuclear energy despite its fundamentally different safety, waste, and proliferation profile. This classification is inaccurate and politically counterproductive. Fusion should be explicitly recognized as a distinct, strategic clean energy category in future calls. 2. Increase upfront support and de-risk private investment: Capital intensity is a key barrier to first-of-a-kind fusion plants. The 40% cap on upfront funding and the 40M Pilot ceiling are misaligned with the funding needs of fusion demonstrators. The Fund should offer more flexible financial instruments, including equity or blended finance, and allow greater upfront disbursements. 3. Improve alignment with fusion project timelines: Current requirements (e.g. financial close within four years) do not reflect the long development cycles of fusion projects. A dedicated mechanism should extend the maximum project duration to at least 10 years and adjust timelines for financial close and disbursement accordingly. 4. Align fusion funding with EU strategic goals: Fusion supports emissions reduction, energy security, and industrial resilience. A dedicated fusion envelope of 750 million, similar to the EU Hydrogen Bank, could unlock 2.25 billion in private investment. 5. Clarify eligibility and evaluation criteria for fusion: Evaluation should reflect fusions long-term climate impact and industrial potential, not just short-term emissions savings. Fusion-specific metrics and expert reviewers must be integrated into the process to ensure fair and informed assessments. Details are included in the attachment.
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Response to EU Fusion Strategy

25 Jun 2025

Proxima Fusion is Europes fastest growing energy start-up and the first spin-out of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. We are committed to bringing commercial stellarator-based fusion to market, with our first net-energy demonstrator set for 2031. We welcome the European Commissions initiative to develop a Fusion Strategy. Policy signals, such as this one can have an outsized impact on investments and reinforce Europes industrial positioning. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the Strategy is released with an unambiguous support for the commercialization of fusion and its growing startup and scale-up landscape. As noted in the Call for Evidence the EU is acting belatedly: over the past decade, fusion has moved from scientific ambition to commercial race. The US, UK, China, and Japan have all adopted clear strategies to support private fusion development and allocated billions in public funding. The EU, by contrast, has been slow to adapt. Much of its policy and funding remains anchored to ITER, a project of scientific importance, but not designed to deliver commercial energy. To accelerate fusions path to market we urge the Commission to focus on the following priorities: 1. Place commercial deployment at the heart of the strategy: Under the current trajectory, the first net-energy demonstration of fusion will come from outside Europe. To remain competitive, the EU must explicitly recognize commercial deployment as a core goal and align public funding accordingly. The US DoEs 2024 Fusion Strategy provides a model: it opens with a clear commitment to enable commercially relevant fusion pilot plantsand demonstrate an operating fusion pilot plant, led by the private sector, in the 2030s. The EU Strategy must be equally direct and start with an unequivocal statement of support for private-sector-led commercialization. 2. Develop instruments that support private fusion companies: The EU fusion funding architecture must evolve to support commercial efforts including first-of-a-kind demonstrators, and unlock private investment through blended finance instruments, public guarantees, and risk-sharing mechanisms. The EU Innovation Fund, the forthcoming Competitiveness Fund, and the European Investment Bank must recognize fusions alignment with their strategic goals and allocate funding. 3. Create a fit-for-purpose regulatory environment: Fusion is fundamentally different from fission: no meltdown risk, no long-lived waste, and no need for geological storage. The UK and US have adopted proportionate, risk-based regulatory approaches. The EU must do the same. Member States should regulate fusion under general industrial and environmental safety rules. The Strategy should also support an EU-level Code of Practice for national regulators, harmonizing safety while preserving flexibility. 4. Include fusion energy in core industrial and energy policy frameworks: Fusion should be explicitly included in the EU Clean Industrial Deal, the Taxonomy Regulation and the Net-Zero Industry Act. Omission has impeded investor confidence. We welcome the inclusion of fusion in the NZIA Delegated Act, but the list remains incomplete as key components are still missing. 5. Ensure governance reflects the evolving fusion ecosystem: The current fusion governance structure excludes private enterprises. For example, the Fusion Expert Group is exclusively made up of Member State representatives without allowing even an observer status for the private sector. This must change. Private fusion industry must be formally represented in both the strategic agenda-setting and monitoring processes. Furthermore, we suggest the Commission create a dedicated unit, within DG ENER, tasked with supporting commercialization. At present, fusion policy is managed by units focused on ITER and research. The new unit will ensure that market and industrial aspects of fusion are properly considered.
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Meeting with Alexandr Hobza (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné)

24 Jun 2025 · Development of the fusion energy technology

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

24 Jun 2025 · Discussion on the potential of Fusion energy for Europe’s decarbonisation.

Response to Nuclear Illustrative Programme

7 May 2025

Please see our feedback in the attachment.
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Meeting with Ekaterina Zaharieva (Commissioner) and

1 Apr 2025 · Discussion about the prospects and difficulties of fusion

Meeting with Alexandra Hild (Cabinet of Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva)

27 Jan 2025 · Exchange on fusion in Europe. Proxima Fusion presented the company and informed about obstacles they are facing.