Reassessing Decarbonization Pathways: the Role of micro-SMRs in an Electrification constrained EU Energy Framework. Author manuscript made openly available for scholarly discussion.

This paper is an unpublished author manuscript made openly available for scholarly discussion. The manuscript was completed in March 2025 and reflects the state of the literature, policy debate and EU regulatory framework reviewed by the author at that time. It has not been accepted for journal publication and should not be cited as a peer-reviewed publication. The text is shared in order to support academic exchange on the role of micro-SMRs in EU decarbonisation policy and energy law. Given subsequent legal, policy and market developments, some references, assessments and forward-looking observations may no longer reflect the current state of EU law and policy. This manuscript is made publicly available in its original argumentative structure, without full substantive updating. It should therefore be read as a time-stamped scholarly contribution rather than as a statement of the current legal position. Readers should verify any references to EU legislation, industrial policy, taxonomy, electricity market design, hydrogen regulation and SMR-related policy developments against the most recent official sources. Recommended citation: Robert Zajdler, Reassessing Decarbonization Pathways: The Role of Micro-SMRs in an Electrification-Constrained EU Energy Framework, author manuscript made openly available for scholarly discussion, March 2025, published on Zenodo in April 2026, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19555147.