Foratom, the European nuclear trade body, has welcomed the ambitions outlined in the European Commission's Industrial Strategy, which was published yesterday. The strategy is part of European Commission President Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen's political guidelines and responds to a request from the European Council in March 2019.

The European Union's energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, representing the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and Kazuo Kodama, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Japan to the EU, yesterday signed a joint declaration on the Broader Approach activities in fusion energy. These agreements relate to the Iter project in southern France as it approaches first plasma and the start of its operation.

Romania must recover around EUR13 million (USD14 million) of rescue funding from uranium company Compania Națională a Uraniului SA after the European Commission found a restructuring plan for the company did not meet European Union rules on state aid.

The European Commission yesterday unveiled its plan for at least EUR1 trillion (USD1.1 trillion) in sustainable investments over the next decade. The European Green Deal Investment Plan is the investment pillar of the Green Deal, which aims to make the EU climate-neutral by 2050.

The foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK have triggered a dispute resolution mechanism over the nuclear deal with Iran - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - following the Middle Eastern country's further step away from its commitments. Josep Borrell, EU foreign affairs chief and coordinator of the JCPOA joint commission, said he had received today a letter from the three ministers for resolution through the mechanism, as set out in paragraph 36 of the agreement.

A compromise agreement on criteria to be used to determine whether an economic activity is environmentally sustainable has been reached by the European Parliament, European Commission and the European Council. The so-called 'taxonomy regulation' does not explicitly exclude nuclear energy.

The European Parliament yesterday adopted a resolution on COP25 - the 25th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - to begin in Madrid next week. The resolution states that all technologies - including nuclear - are needed to combat climate change, for which it has declared an emergency.

Nuclear has a place in Europe's energy mix, but rising costs - even if only perceived - need to be addressed to ensure future growth, speakers agreed at the New Nuclear Watch Institute's first annual forum, held in London yesterday.

Nuclear power can help nations attain energy security, diversity and decarbonisation, and the USA is "ready and willing" to offer its technology to achieve this, US Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a US-EU High-Level Industrial Forum this week.

The speed and scale needed to stop climate change requires laser-like focus on evidence-based, and sometimes tough, decision-making. Recently we witnessed a welcome example of such evidence-based decision-making in Europe's energy and climate change policies, write Kirsty Gogan, Rauli Partanen and Eric Ingersoll.

Foratom has welcomed the European Council's decision to remain technology neutral in its strategy on financing sustainable growth and the transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy, but it urges the European Commission to establish a group with expertise in nuclear life-cycle technologies to advise on its EU-wide classification system, or 'taxonomy', the implementation of which has been postponed by two years.

The power sector supports the European Commission's goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the EU economy by 2050, the association of European electricity generators, Eurelectric, said. However, it has called for six "critical enablers" to be put in place to achieve this.