Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, and Dan Jørgensen, European Commissioner for Energy, share a clear message: more grids, more electricity, fewer fossil fuels. And in the energy mix that must power this electrified future, nuclear is no longer a matter of debate. Their recent interview with Euronews laid out the priorities of Europe’s energy agenda with a directness rarely heard at this institutional level.
The core argument is that Europe cannot mistake any geopolitical easing for a return to business as usual. Birol warned that a closure of the Strait of Hormuz would send oil prices surging, with severe consequences for European economies. The structural response, according to both officials, is a rapid electrification drive: expanding nuclear and renewable capacity, investing in grid infrastructure, accelerating electric vehicles and heat pumps, and making electricity cheaper than fossil fuels. The cost of electricity, Birol stressed, is the real deciding factor: “People won’t choose electric because it’s clean. They’ll choose it because it costs less.” Jørgensen, meanwhile, previewed the upcoming EU electrification strategy, a draft of which has already been seen by Euronews.
The numbers behind these words are compelling. Global nuclear generation already hit a record in 2025, driven by reactor restarts in Japan, increased output in France, and new units coming online in China, India, and South Korea. According to the IEA, nuclear growth will average 2.8% per year through 2030 — more than double the pace recorded between 2021 and 2025. By the end of the decade, renewables and nuclear combined will cover 50% of global electricity generation, up from 42% today. More than 70 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity are currently under construction worldwide — one of the highest levels in thirty years — and over 40 countries have incorporated nuclear power into their national energy strategies.
On the grid side, the challenge is equally significant. The IEA estimates that meeting future electricity demand will require a 50% increase in annual investment in transmission infrastructure by 2030. In Europe, the European Investment Bank has already committed a record €11 billion in new grid financing in 2025, nearly tripling its 2023 levels. The European Parliament and the EU Council are set to begin political negotiations after the summer on modernising the continent’s electricity networks. The Iberian Peninsula remains the most glaring example of current shortcomings: poor interconnection with France restricts energy flows and undermines the resilience of the broader European system.
Birol stops short of dictating any country’s energy mix: “Some are betting on nuclear, others more on renewables, others on both. But the electrification we’re talking about is necessary whether you go nuclear or renewable.” It is a position that moves beyond the old either/or debate and places nuclear as a structural component of any credible decarbonisation scenario. Small modular reactors — SMRs — are explicitly cited by the IEA as a key driver of future growth, with an estimate of 80 GW of installed capacity by 2040, provided investment is doubled to $120 billion per year by 2030.
Whether European policy holds this course after the summer — when negotiations on the new grid framework begin — will reveal how much of what Birol and Jørgensen have said is destined to become real infrastructure. The institutional signal is unambiguous. The outcome depends on how quickly member states align their national plans with a vision that, for the first time in years, places nuclear and grids on equal footing with renewables in building European energy security.
