Italy’s lower house of parliament has approved a bill paving the way for the country’s return to nuclear energy, nearly four decades after the technology was abandoned.
The Chamber of Deputies passed the so-called delegation law on sustainable nuclear power on June 4, 2026, by 155 votes to 86, with eight abstentions.
The measure now goes to the upper house, the Senate, where the government said it expected to secure final approval before the summer recess in late July.
The legislation does not itself authorise the building of any reactors. Instead it hands Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government a mandate to issue implementing decrees within 12 months.
Those decrees would set the rules for the construction and operation of new plants, the management of radioactive waste and nuclear safety oversight.
The framework also provides for an independent Nuclear Safety Authority and a National Programme for Sustainable Nuclear Power, in line with European decarbonisation targets for 2050 and energy security goals.
Italian environment and energy security minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin has said he wants all the implementing decrees completed by the end of 2026. Nuclear electricity production is targeted for around 2035.
The push is a flagship policy of Meloni’s right-wing government, which has framed atomic power as central to lowering bills and cutting reliance on imported gas.
Meloni has described the plan as a way to guarantee “energy security and strategic independence”, according to comments she made after an earlier cabinet meeting.
Italy operated four nuclear power plants from the early 1960s but turned away from the technology after a 1987 referendum, held in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The last two reactors, at Caorso and Trino Vercellese, were shut down in 1990.
Public opinion has shifted since then. A poll conducted in 2021 found that about one-third of Italians were open to reconsidering nuclear energy, with more than half saying they would not rule out newer technologies, Reuters reported.
Opposition parties voted against the bill, arguing the timeline was unrealistic and the costs unclear.
State-controlled utility Enel is expected to play a leading role, while officials have held talks with international firms, including United States group Westinghouse and France’s EDF, about building advanced reactors.
