Foreign Affairs Minister speaks, in Brussels, of upgrade projects for Cernavoda Unit 1, building of additional units

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ramona Manescu participated, on Monday, in Brussels, in the first EU-US high-level forum on small modular reactors, a release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) sent to AGERPRES shows. 

The forum saw the participation, according to the quoted source, of the European Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action, Miguel Arias Canete and the US Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, as well as the General Directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 

In the intervention presented during the opening session of the forum, the Romanian minister appreciated that the event "represents an additional confirmation of the process of deepening the trans-Atlantic partnership in strategic domains such as that of civilian nuclear energy." On this occasions she reiterated Romania's support for continuing the development, at the European and global level, of the civilian nuclear energy industry, taking into consideration its role in ensuring energy security, as well as the contribution it brings to the general effort of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

In what regards Romania, Manescu emphasized the important role that nuclear energy plays in Romania maintaining a diversified energy mix. 

"She mentioned the upgrade projects for Unit 1 at Cernavoda [Nuclear Power Station], as well those for the building of additional unit and presented, in that context, Romania's appurtenance to the group of states which are interested in developing, on their territory, fourth generation reactors, through the project developed by the Nuclear Research Institute in Pitesti," MAE emphasized. 

In the recent context of the significant development of the industry of small modular reactors, the high-level EU-US industrial forum proposed to discuss the challenges and opportunities of using this technology as part of future energy systems. The participants in the government, parliament, business and regulation environments had the opportunity to discuss the ways to develop EU-US cooperation in this domain, the event having special relevance in the context of the process of consolidating the trans-Atlantic partnership.