“Nuclear power is heavily subsidised, and even on the British government’s terms that is wrong,” said Gerry Wolff, coordinator of the Energy Fair group which lodged the complaint with the EU's Competition directorate-general.

“They’ve said repeatedly that nuclear power shouldn’t receive any subsidies,” he told EurActiv.

Energy Fair argues that the cap on liabilities that the British and other European governments provide to the nuclear industry constitutes an unfair subsidy.

The bloc's 27 countries have agreed in principle to ban oil imports from Iran in order to put more pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

But they remain divided over several issues, primarily the length of a planned grace period that would allow states heavily dependent on Iranian oil to fulfil existing contracts for a period after the ban went into place.

At a meeting on Thursday, senior EU diplomats had been expected to agree to a plan allowing for a grace period until the end of June.

Many European gas supply companies are hurting from long-term gas deals with suppliers such as Gazprom or Norway's Statoil, which link their import rates to oil prices, while supply firms have to sell gas to customers at lower retail prices linked to the freely traded spot market.

Gazprom said on 17 January that it had adjusted contracts with France's GDF Suez, its German joint venture Wingas, Slovakia's dominant gas provider SPP, Sinergie Italiane and Austria's EconGas in deals finalised in late 2011 and early 2012.

"We have clearly told them [Russia] that we are not going to buy the huge volume of gas that is set out in these enslaving contracts," Azarov's office quoted him as saying on a visit to the Ukrainian city of Khmelnitsky on 17 January.

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CorradoClini

CorradoClini

Wed, 2012-01-18 13:15

• general

Corrado Clini is Italy's minister of the environment in Mario Monti's government of 'technocrats'. A career civil servant, he has previously organised environmental forums for the G8 and served as director-general of Ministry of the Environment's department for international protection of the environment. He was interviewed by EurActiv Italy's Alessandra Flora.

"Nuclear research points towards clean energy in the medium-long term," Clini said. "Renewables, which we highly support and promote, are the present and the near future. I see no contradiction in this position."

"Instead, it is important to study the evolution of nuclear technology, in order for our country not to fall behind and acquire the knowledge to exploit the innovations in other research areas," he said.

On 23 January, EU Foreign Affairs ministers are set to discuss the timeframe for implementing an oil embargo, and possible sanctions against individual members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and institutions linked to Teheran’s financial sector.