Greece’s Government Committee on Nuclear Energy: what Act 28/2026 says

What the Act is

Greece’s Government Committee on Nuclear Energy was established by Cabinet Act No. 281 of 24 August 2026, published in the Government Gazette (FEK), Issue A, No. 1361, on 8 September 2026.1

It follows a Cabinet meeting on 30 July 2026, at which the Minister of Environment and Energy, Stavros Papastavrou, and Deputy Minister Nikolaos Tsafos proposed the Committee. The government’s statement that day said it would make proposals on the possible use of nuclear energy, and of small modular reactors in particular, in the Greek energy system.2 Small modular reactors are a family of many designs, very few of which are operating or under construction, and licensing, financing and fuel supply remain open questions for them.

The July statement announced an intention. The Act gives it legal form: it lists the members by post, sets out the tasks, fixes a deadline and says to whom the Committee reports. In its recitals the Act gives its own purpose as researching, studying and assessing all the relevant parameters and formulating proposals on the "possible" inclusion of nuclear energy in Greece’s long-term energy planning. The word "possible" is in the text.

The mandate: NEPIO for Phase 1

Article 3 gives the Committee the role of the Nuclear Energy Programme Implementing Organization (NEPIO), following the procedures of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Within that role it organises and manages Phase 1 of the IAEA Milestones approach, which the Act calls the "exploratory phase". The Act cites three IAEA publications by number: NG-G-3.1 (Rev. 1), NG-T-3.6 and NG-T-3.14.1 The Committee’s work therefore has a published specification, and its output can be checked against it.

In the IAEA’s Milestones publication, a NEPIO is the mechanism a government creates to coordinate the organisations involved in developing nuclear infrastructure. It does not build anything. In Phase 1 its purpose is to gather the information and complete the studies needed for an informed policy decision on whether or not to develop a nuclear power programme at this time. The IAEA also sets four conditions for the body itself: a clear mandate, recognition by all relevant ministries and organisations, reporting to a senior minister or directly to the head of government, and the resources and staff to do the work.3

Read side by side, the Greek Act meets the first three explicitly. The mandate is in Article 3. Article 10 obliges all public services and bodies to cooperate, keep the Committee informed and supply data. The Committee reports to the Cabinet.1 The fourth condition is less clearly met. The Act provides one civil servant for administrative and secretarial support, pays its members nothing and states that it creates no cost to the state budget, so the money for the studies will have to come from elsewhere.

Two obligations set the scale of the work. One is an analysis of institutional gaps against the IAEA’s list of infrastructure issues (19 issues3), with a separate technical deliverable for each category. The other is carrying out or coordinating pre-feasibility studies, particularly on costs and benefits. A feasibility study answers whether a programme would make sense economically; the gap analysis answers whether the country could run one. Those issues are covered in whether Greece could support a nuclear programme.

The deadline and the Final Report

The Committee must produce a Final Report within 24 months1 of its establishment and submit it to the Cabinet. The Act lists four parts, set out below. The recommendation comes last and rests on the documentation before it.

This is a deadline for a study and a recommendation. It is not a deadline for construction, licensing or a tender, and timetables from other countries’ programmes do not transfer to it.

The Committee meets in ordinary session every 2 months1, and in extraordinary session when its chair decides or the Minister of Environment and Energy asks.

• The results of the institutional gap analysis.
• A summary of the pre-feasibility studies.
• A roadmap for developing a national nuclear programme.
• A technical recommendation on whether or not to start one.

Who sits on the Committee

The Act names posts, not people. The Committee has 23 members1, chaired by the Deputy Minister of Environment and Energy responsible for the General Secretariat for Energy and Mineral Raw Materials; in the Deputy Minister’s absence, the Secretary-General for Energy and Mineral Raw Materials chairs.1 Because seats are tied to posts, a reshuffle does not need a new Act, although accountability rests with offices rather than individuals.

Members include secretaries-general from nine ministries, two secretaries-general and one special secretary from the Presidency of the Government (coordination, national security and long-term planning), and a representative of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff. The Ministry of Environment and Energy (YPEN) has four secretaries-general on the Committee: energy, natural environment and water, spatial planning, and waste management coordination. The other ministries cover finance, foreign affairs, defence, health, infrastructure and transport, development (research and industry), shipping and civil protection. The head of YPEN’s General Directorate for Energy, which also provides the Committee’s secretariat, has a seat.

Three specialist bodies sit as full members: the President of the Greek Atomic Energy Commission (EEAE), which is the regulator; the President of NCSR "Demokritos"; and the Vice-President for energy of the Regulatory Authority for Waste, Energy and Water (RAAEY). Having the regulator inside a planning body cuts both ways. Much of the country’s expertise in radiation protection and safeguards sits there, and a gap analysis without it would be written blind; the same authority will later have to judge what is being planned now. The IAEA’s position is that the regulator’s independence should strengthen as a programme advances, so that by Phase 2 it is effectively independent in its regulatory judgement.3 More in Greece’s nuclear regulator, the EEAE.

Article 2(2) allows the chair to invite 7 bodies1 to meetings without voting rights: the chief executives of the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO/ADMIE) and of the distribution network operator (HEDNO/DEDDIE), and the presidents of the Centre for Renewable Energy Sources (CRES), the Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE), the National Council for Research, Technology and Innovation, the Union of Greek Shipowners and the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV). Up to 6 experts1 from the private sector, appointed by the Minister of Environment and Energy, can also attend without a vote. On our reading, the grid operators’ presence treats the grid as part of the question rather than a given, and the shipowners’ presence reflects maritime use, which Article 3 names explicitly.

The drafting happens elsewhere. Alongside the Committee the Act sets up a Nuclear Energy Technical Project Team, which analyses and prepares the deliverable for each infrastructure issue, coordinates the pre-feasibility studies and drafts the roadmap and the Final Report. It consists of the chair, a coordinator and up to 18 members1, including up to 8 experts1 from the private sector, and is formed by ministerial decision; the Minister may also set up sub-groups.

What the Act does not do

The Committee recommends; the Cabinet decides. The Act does not decide to build a plant and does not choose a technology. It names no site, no geographical criterion and no installation scenario, and commits no budget to a project. Nor does it create an agency with staff and money of its own: Committee members receive no fee or allowance under Article 9, members of the Technical Project Team are not paid for taking part "beyond what the provisions in force provide in each case", and the Act states that it imposes no cost on the state budget.1

It does not presume the outcome either. The recommendation is to be on "whether or not" to start a national programme, so a negative answer is written into the mandate.1 In the IAEA’s sequence, being ready to make a knowledgeable commitment is only the first of three milestones. Phase 2 covers preparatory work for contracting and construction and ends with readiness to invite bids or negotiate a contract for the first plant; Phase 3 covers the activities to implement it and ends with readiness to commission and operate it.3

For anyone following coverage of the Committee, the Act is short and public. A power, deadline or intention attributed to the Committee is either in one of its ten articles or nowhere. The common errors are treating the creation of a body as a decision on a programme, reading the report deadline as a construction timetable, and attributing choices to a text that makes none: it names no site, and mentions technologies only as options to study, "such as conventional reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs)". For the wider picture, see where Greece stands.

The first meeting, as reported, and what is not yet known

According to a report by the Greek outlet energypress on 13 October 2026, the Committee’s first meeting was scheduled for 14 October at YPEN, with two further meetings reported for 5 and 25 November.4 A later report by the same outlet, on 15 October, said the meeting had taken place, chaired by Deputy Minister for Environment and Energy Nikos Tsafos, with more than 40 representatives of ministries, public bodies and industry, about 30 of them in person.5 If the November dates hold, that is a denser schedule than the regular one the Act sets. According to the 15 October report, a delegation from the IAEA’s nuclear infrastructure development section presented the Milestones approach, the procedure the Act already cites, and the reported aim is a first complete picture within the following six months. An earlier first text would not change the deadline for the Final Report, of which the roadmap is one of four parts.

The 13 October report had put the number of members at "approaching 40".4 That figure counts members and invitees together, so it does not compare with the 23 members1 set by the Act. No official announcement of the meeting had been published by 15 October 2026. Several things remain open:

• What was discussed and decided at the first meeting; that needs an official announcement or minutes.
• Who holds the posts on the Committee in practice, who coordinates the Technical Project Team and who the private experts are.
• Which of the non-voting bodies have actually been invited.
• Which studies will be commissioned, how they will be funded and at what cost.
• When and in what form a first roadmap will be published, if it is published at all.

The editor works as an engineer in the nuclear sector. Views here are his own and do not represent any employer. The platform receives no funding from anyone. Not yet independently reviewed by a second engineer. Read in Greek.