Data centres power AI and the internet. But Brussels’ new green label for them gives no credit to nuclear energy, despite the European Commission recognising it as a sustainable energy source. A French lawmaker is now pushing the Commission to think again.
The Commission is developing a rating scheme for data centres under the Energy Efficiency Directive. It will score facilities on how sustainably they operate, looking at energy consumption, water use, and the source of their electricity. The consultation on the draft closed in April 2026.
The draft draws a clear line between renewable and non-renewable electricity. Solar and wind get credit. Nuclear does not, even though it produces almost no carbon emissions. Under the current methodology, the energy source’s status as renewable or non-renewable matters more than its actual emissions profile.
Brussels contradicts itself
Nuclear already appears on the EU’s official list of sustainable energy sources. In March 2026, the Commission also published a strategy for small modular reactors, flagging data centres as one of the key markets for nuclear-generated electricity.
Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe/FRA), coordinator for the Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), has written to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and several commissioners, calling the draft incoherent.
You might be interested
His argument is simple. France has built one of Europe’s cleanest electricity grids, almost entirely on nuclear power. Under the new label, a data centre plugged into that grid would score worse than one in a country with more wind turbines but a higher overall share of fossil fuels.
Mr Grudler is calling on the Commission to put nuclear, hydropower, and renewables on equal footing in the final text. Adoption is expected in the second quarter of 2026. He has pushed for changes before what he describes as the regulation’s final presentation on 27 May, a date not confirmed in official Commission documents.
More than a technical dispute
The disagreement goes beyond methodology. Nuclear power has long divided EU member states. France and Finland see it as essential to decarbonisation. Germany and Austria do not. The Commission has tried to keep both sides satisfied, but a label that implicitly downgrades nuclear will not go unnoticed in Paris.
All decarbonising energies, without exception, must be recognised.
— Christophe Grudler, ITRE coordinator, European Parliament (Renew Europe/FRA)
“All decarbonising energies, without exception, must be recognised,” Mr Grudler wrote. He warned that penalising low-carbon but non-renewable grids could push AI and cloud investment out of Europe. That would be the opposite of what Brussels intends.
Data centres are among the fastest-growing electricity consumers on the continent. As AI drives demand higher, where companies choose to build will depend partly on cost, partly on regulation, and increasingly on how green their energy is deemed to be. Getting the label right matters.
