A group of 14 MEPs from across the political spectrum, led by Sarah Knafo (ESN), has questioned the European Commission on an apparent contradiction in the EU's Cloud and AI Development Act, which promotes nuclear power for data centres while penalising it through sustainability indicators. The written question, submitted on 15 June 2026, highlights a tension between Article 4(1)(e), which explicitly identifies small modular reactors as an energy source for data centres, and Article 11, which requires data centres in acceleration zones to apply performance indicators from Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364, including a renewable energy factor that disadvantages nuclear power despite its carbon-free status.
The MEPs ask the Commission to justify promoting nuclear power while including indicators that penalise it, and whether it intends to recognise nuclear as sustainable in future data centre labelling, in line with technological neutrality and a request from ten Member States, including France, who wrote to the Commission on 26 May 2026 condemning the departure from technological neutrality. The question, filed under Rule 144, targets the Commission's policy coherence and its response to member state concerns. The Commission is expected to reply within approximately six weeks, and its answer will signal whether it plans to adjust the regulatory framework to treat nuclear power equally with renewables in data centre sustainability metrics.