In July 2022, the European Parliament voted to include certain nuclear and gas activities within the European Union's list of officially approved "green" investments.

China and France are two of the world's biggest generators of nuclear energy, with both having large-scale plans to expand capacity in the coming years.

The lawmakers said exempting EDF from U.S. sanctions would allow it to purchase a subsidiary of a U.S. company that had been engaged in nuclear power projects with Rosatom in Hungary, Turkey and Egypt, projects that have been suspended for years due to sanctions.

France and Sweden will "promote a regulatory, industrial and financial framework favourable to the realisation of nuclear installation projects with a high level of safety and ensuring institutional support for nuclear energy in compliance with the principle of technological neutrality and with the objective of strengthening Europe's sovereignty and energy security".

France aims to reduce its final energy consumption by 30% in 2030 to 104 Mtoe (from around 143 Mtoe in 2022, according to first estimates), compared to 2012, and to reach a primary energy consumption of 157 Mtoe in 2030 (from 212 Mtoe in 2022).

The EU’s 27 members are divided. Central and eastern European countries that have their own nuclear expansion ambitions are supporting France while non-nuclear powers including Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Austria, are backing Germany.

The board of directors of Orano has approved an investment of some EUR1.7 billion (USD1.8 billion) to raise the production capacity of the Georges Besse II (GB-II) uranium enrichment plant at the Tricastin site in southern France by more than 30%.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire faced a difficult decision between maintaining France as an attractive investment destination and maintaining sovereignty over strategic technology, but finally decided to veto the takeover.

China will boost economic relations with France and enhance business cooperation in both traditional sectors such as aviation, nuclear energy and high-end consumption and emerging areas such as medicine and new energy.

Two camps, one led by Germany and the other by France, are fighting it out, each with a blocking minority on a specific point: Should low-carbon hydrogen be taken into account when measuring the efforts of member states to reach the target of 45% of renewables in their energy mix by 2030?