MOSCOW, November 5. /TASS/. Given high electricity prices, Europe will have to forget about any technological leadership in the foreseeable future, Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev told reporters.

"The prohibitive cost per kilowatt-hour is a death sentence not only for the Old World's previously existing industry. In the foreseeable future, the only thing skyrocketing in European countries will be electricity prices. On this side of the Atlantic, they will have to forget about any technological leadership. Without affordable electricity at predictable prices, there can be no modern manufacturing, no IT sector, and no AI technologies," he said, commenting on a recent statement by European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jorgensen that high electricity prices this winter would force Europeans to choose "between food and heating."

The head of Rosatom noted that nuclear generation has no competitors in terms of reliability, affordability, and predictability. "The situation in the EU electricity markets shows that a well-developed nuclear energy sector is a highly effective inoculation against skyrocketing energy prices," Likhachev emphasized.