Don't impede our nuclear, V4 tells EU

Leaders from four central European countries have come together to tell the European Union they feel that nuclear energy is being discriminated against, and have called for the EU to support their nuclear expansion plans.

Leaders from four central European countries have come together to tell the European Union they feel that nuclear energy is being discriminated against, and have called for the EU to support their nuclear expansion plans.

The V4 leaders meet in Budapest (Image: Árvai Károly/Hungarian Government)

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban made the comments on behalf of the Visegrad group of countries - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, known as the V4 - in a statement at the group's summit in Budapest. Orbán took over the presidency of the V4 from Polish prime minister Donald Tusk in July.

According to Orbán, the V4 nations feel that the EU is not providing the support that it could to countries that wish to develop nuclear energy. "We believe that it is important and is something that the European economy cannot disregard in future. And we also believe that every country has the right to generate its own energy requirements from the resources it has at its disposal, according to its unique characteristics and interests. And for this reason we expect the European Union to facilitate the increase of Central Europe's nuclear capacity, rather than impede it," he said.

The statement cautioned against over-regulation of nuclear energy and called for the EU's stance on the state funding of energy-related investment projects to be rethought, "because in our view, nuclear energy is being discriminated against."

All of the V4 nations have plans to increase - or in Poland's case, install - nuclear capacity in the future.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News