EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Friday negative public opinion limited the use of nuclear energy in the bloc, but vowed to push it as far he could.
"I am ready to go as far as we can go in the Union," he said at a conference in the Czech city of Ostrava.
"But on the EU level, there is a different public opinion which should be respected that puts a limit to involvement of the EU in nuclear energy."
"I am personally supporting nuclear energy as an important part of the EU energy mix", he added during the conference on energy security in Europe.
"Nuclear power is a fair part of our energy mix. I know that it's not the most appropriate solution to every issue but it's a part of the energy mix," Piebalgs said.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, also supported nuclear energy as a way to cut carbon emissions.
"Do we want to have a sustainable energy with low emissions? Then we won't be able to do without nuclear energy," he said.
Piebalgs said that a nuclear energy forum set to take place in Prague this spring should address the question of new investments in the field.
"There are a lot of countries where public opinion is not the problem but at the same time practically no new investments are announced," he added.
Nuclear power plants currently produce around a third of the EU's electricity and around 15 percent of its total energy but that proportion is dwindling as plants built in the 1960s and 1970s come to the end of their lives.
France and Germany have developed an as yet untested third generation pressurised water reactor. One is under construction in France and one in Findland, but both have experienced delays.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy Thursday confirmed press reports that a second such reactor is to be built in northern France, sparking an angry reaction from environmental groups.
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