1. Introduction

Although Poland has had a general legal framework for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy since the adoption of the Atomic Law of 29 November 2000, the regulatory architecture governing project development was substantially complemented by the Act of 29 June 2011 on the preparation and implementation of investments in nuclear power facilities and associated investments (the Nuclear Special Act). Together with secondary legislation and technical regulations, these acts structure the legal environment for the development, licensing, construction and operation of nuclear installations in Poland^[1].

That architecture was largely designed with conventional large-scale nuclear power plants in mind. It therefore does not yet provide a differentiated procedural track tailored to SMRs, even though SMR projects may involve multi-site deployment, industrial cogeneration, phased construction and a closer integration with local electricity and heat systems^[2].

This asymmetry reflects both political and regulatory realities. Polish energy policy has so far prioritised the deployment of large nuclear power plants as projects of strategic State importance, while SMR development has been pursued primarily by private or mixed public-private initiatives. At the same time, the lack of domestic operating experience with SMRs and the still-evolving international licensing practice make it more difficult to build a stable legislative consensus around dedicated SMR rules. This should, however, be distinguished from the question of general social legitimacy. Recent public-opinion research in Poland indicates exceptionally strong support for nuclear energy, including relatively high declared acceptance at the local level. The principal challenge is therefore not the absence of a social mandate for nuclear development as such, but the difficulty of translating broad support for nuclear energy into legally stable, site-specific and procedurally credible pathways for SMR deployment^[3].

The article argues that the core problem is not the absence of a legal basis for SMRs as such, but the insufficient degree of procedural differentiation and coordination across the relevant regulatory interfaces. Administrative burdens, sequencing constraints and legal uncertainty may prove disproportionate for smaller, industrially embedded projects, especially where investors seek to combine electricity generation with process heat, district heating or other site-specific uses. The article also positions itself in relation to earlier Polish scholarship on SMRs. Piotr Betkowski correctly identified the basic structural mismatch between a legal framework designed primarily for large nuclear units and the emerging logic of SMR deployment in Poland. The present study accepts that diagnosis as an important starting point but shifts the centre of analysis from the mere existence of a normative mismatch to its institutional and procedural consequences across multiple regulatory interfaces. Its added value lies in combining doctrinal analysis with institutional mapping, process mapping and a risk-allocation perspective encompassing environmental review, siting, construction permitting, grid and heat integration, and liability and insurance arrangements.

The article has three objectives. First, it identifies the place of SMRs within the broader strategic and policy framework of the Polish State. Secondly, it maps the institutional architecture involved in the preparation, authorisation and implementation of nuclear projects. Thirdly, it analyses selected substantive and procedural mechanisms that are especially relevant to risk allocation in early SMR projects, including licensing sequences, environmental assessment, spatial planning, construction permitting, and the allocation of residual risks through liability and insurance arrangements.

The article does not seek to provide an exhaustive commentary on the entirety of Polish nuclear law, nor does it aim to reconstruct all civil-law dimensions of nuclear damage in doctrinal detail. It focuses instead on those administrative and regulatory elements that are most likely to affect the bankability, legal certainty and delivery timeline of first-of-a-kind and early-fleet SMR investments, taking into account not only enacted legislation, but also selected legislative materials and the still limited yet increasingly relevant body of administrative practice and judicial review surrounding nuclear projects in Poland^[4]. On that basis, it proposes directions for legislative refinement capable of shortening the critical path of project development while preserving the fundamental requirements of nuclear safety, transparency, public participation and regulatory accountability.

2. Method and analytical framework

This article uses a doctrinal and institutional legal research design. The primary method is doctrinal analysis of the Polish legal acts applicable to SMR deployment, read together with the relevant European Union framework, the international nuclear liability instruments binding on Poland, and selected international standards and guidance. The analysis focuses not only on the content of individual norms, but also on their functional interaction across successive stages of project development^[5]. The doctrinal inquiry is supplemented by an analysis of legislative materials, including explanatory memoranda and regulatory impact assessments accompanying recent amendments to the Polish nuclear-investment framework. These materials do not replace the enacted text, but they help reconstruct the legislator’s own diagnosis of procedural bottlenecks, the intended sequencing function of selected instruments, and the policy assumptions underlying the acceleration of nuclear investment procedures. The article also takes into account the still limited but increasingly relevant body of administrative practice and judicial review emerging around major nuclear projects in Poland, especially in the field of environmental decision-making.

In addition, the article employs institutional analysis to reconstruct the competences, interfaces and potential overlaps between the public authorities involved in authorisation and implementation. This makes it possible to assess whether the existing administrative architecture can handle the specific features of SMR projects, including modularity, serial deployment, industrial siting and combined electricity-and-heat applications.

A further analytical layer is provided by process mapping. The article maps the regulatory critical path from project conception to operation by identifying the main decisions, required documentation, procedural dependencies and potential appeal points. This approach makes it possible to move beyond a static description of the law and to evaluate the timing and sequencing effects produced by the current framework. The assessment is guided by four analytical criteria: regulatory capacity, proportionality, transparency and bankability^[6].

Methodologically, the article therefore sits at the intersection of doctrinal legal analysis and applied regulatory design. For that reason, the article treats liability, insurance and compensation mechanisms not primarily as autonomous private-law categories, but as components of project governance and residual-risk allocation relevant to the operability and credibility of the administrative framework. Its purpose is not merely descriptive. It also seeks to derive practical legislative and institutional recommendations for the Polish legal framework considering the expected deployment model of SMRs.

3. Strategic and Policy framework

In Polish public policy, nuclear energy is primarily framed as an instrument of energy security, decarbonisation, diversification of the generation mix and long-term industrial modernisation. This logic was developed around large-scale nuclear power, but SMRs do not emerge in a policy vacuum. They are gradually being incorporated into an existing state narrative centred on strategic autonomy, system stability and the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors^[7].

The primary strategic point of reference remains the Energy Policy of Poland until 2040 (EPP2040), adopted by the Council of Ministers on 2 February 2021. EPP2040 identifies nuclear energy as one of the pillars of Poland’s energy transition and links it to security of supply, reduced dependence on fossil fuels and the achievement of climate objectives. Although the document was drafted mainly with large reactors in mind, it opened the strategic space within which SMRs could subsequently be framed as a complementary rather than competing technology.

This strategic positioning is reinforced by the current evolution of the Polish Nuclear Power Programme (PPEJ). It confirms that the State continues to prioritise large-scale nuclear deployment through two planned nuclear power plants with a combined capacity of approximately 6 to 9 GWe. At the same time, work has also been launched on an SMR roadmap in Poland. This is legally and institutionally significant because it suggests that SMRs are increasingly perceived not merely as private-sector projects, but as investments that may require dedicated public coordination, sequencing and administrative preparation^[8].

The policy relevance of SMRs in Poland is closely connected with the structure of the national energy economy. Poland continues to face the simultaneous challenges of replacing ageing coal assets, ensuring security of supply, stabilising the power system, and decarbonising carbon-intensive industry and district heating. In this context, SMRs are discussed as a potential response to several specifically Polish needs: the replacement or conversion of coal-based industrial and municipal heat sources, the provision of stable low-carbon electricity and process heat for energy-intensive sectors, and the strengthening of domestic industrial capabilities within an emerging nuclear supply chain^[9].

This broader strategic role is particularly visible in the way Polish debate links nuclear development with industrial modernisation and state-capacity building. Official materials increasingly stress the importance of domestic competences, workforce preparation and local participation in the nuclear value chain. In this respect, SMRs are often regarded as attractive because modular deployment may create opportunities for serial manufacturing, repeatable project delivery and greater involvement of Polish suppliers^[10].

A further strategic layer concerns the possible contribution of SMRs to the decarbonisation of heat and hydrogen. In Polish conditions, the transition challenge extends beyond electricity generation and includes district heating, industrial steam and other continuous energy uses for which variable renewable generation alone may be insufficient. The current strategic framework does not yet amount to a fully elaborated implementation model for such applications. It does, however, show that the policy horizon has widened enough to accommodate them as legitimate objects of State planning and administrative attention^[11]. A further element that should now be taken into account is the unusually strong social mandate for nuclear energy in Poland. Public debate on nuclear development has historically been framed through concerns about safety, cost and local acceptance. Yet the most recent official survey data indicate that support for nuclear power has become both broad and relatively stable, including at the level of declared local acceptance. This does not eliminate the risk of site-specific contestation, appeals or litigation, especially in environmentally sensitive locations. It does, however, suggest that the key implementation barrier is no longer a weak societal basis for nuclear policy in general, but rather the capacity of legal and administrative institutions to convert that support into predictable and credible project pathways. In this sense, the Polish discussion on SMRs should move beyond the binary of “social acceptance versus social resistance” and focus more directly on institutional operability, proportionality and procedural trust.

At the same time, the place of SMRs remains not fully consolidated. Large-scale nuclear power still occupies the core position in official planning, and recent legislative adjustments have mainly been developed in the paradigm of a major strategic nuclear investment. From a legal-policy perspective, the key issue is therefore no longer whether SMRs fit within Polish state policy, but whether Polish law and public administration are sufficiently differentiated, coordinated and adequately resourced to implement that policy in practice, including under conditions of serial, industrially embedded and potentially multi-site deployment^[12].

4. Polish institutional landscape for nuclear energy

Nuclear energy projects in Poland are governed through a multi-authority decision ecosystem in which safety, security, environmental protection, land-use and energy-market integration are assessed in parallel but through legally distinct procedures. The system relies on staged administrative control, extensive ex ante review and multiple interlocking approvals rather than on a single integrated consent. It is broadly consistent with international expectations concerning nuclear safety, nuclear security and regulatory independence. At the same time, however, it creates a demanding institutional environment for first-of-a-kind projects and for prospective multi-site SMR deployment.

At the centre of the Polish nuclear governance system stands the President of the National Atomic Energy Agency (PAA), who acts as the chief nuclear regulatory authority under the Atomic Law. The PAA is responsible for nuclear safety and radiation protection, regulatory inspection, safeguards-related tasks and emergency preparedness within the scope defined by the legal framework. In practical terms, the core nuclear authorisations for the life cycle of a nuclear facility are issued by the PAA in the form of staged, activity-based licences covering construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning.

The formal investment pathway does not begin with the nuclear licence itself. Under the Nuclear Special Act, the process is preceded by the Decision-in-Principle (Decyzja Zasadnicza), issued by the minister competent for energy raw materials on the investor’s application. This decision should not be described merely as a political endorsement. It is a statutory instrument intended to confirm that a proposed project is compatible with the public interest and with State policy objectives, while opening the way to further administrative steps. The institution has gained greater practical relevance after the amendments of 2023 and 2024, and scholarship rightly notes that it has become an increasingly important element in the Polish nuclear investment pathway for both large reactors and SMR projects^[13].

The next layer of decision-making concerns environmental assessment and siting. Nuclear projects require an Environmental Decision (Decyzja o Środowiskowych Uwarunkowaniach Inwestycji). For major nuclear projects, the General Director for Environmental Protection (Generalny Dyrektor Ochrony Srodowiska) has acted as the competent authority, reflecting the scale, transboundary potential and public-participation intensity of such proceedings.

Siting is then channelled through the special act’s location decision, issued by the competent Voivode (formal representative of the Polish Government in the region), which replaces ordinary land-use instruments for the project and creates the legal basis for further construction-related steps^[14].

Security review is institutionally differentiated as well. Under the Atomic Law, the operator of a nuclear facility must develop a physical protection system, while the President of the PAA approves that system only after obtaining a positive opinion from the Head of the Internal Security Agency (ABW). A related but distinct dimension concerns cybersecurity. Poland’s Act on the National Cybersecurity System extends cyber-regulatory obligations applicable to critical and energy infrastructure to the nuclear context, thereby widening the institutional map beyond the traditional nuclear triangle of safety regulator, investor and construction authorities^[15].

The energy-market and network layer introduces yet another set of institutions. Grid-connection conditions and the connection agreement are handled in the first instance by the relevant transmission or distribution system operator. The President of the Energy Regulatory Office (URE) remains legally important in at least two respects: concessions required under the Energy Law and dispute-resolution functions concerning refusal to conclude a connection agreement or related connection disputes. For SMR investors this means that network access and market entry are not external to the project’s legal pathway; they form one of its final but commercially decisive segments.

Taken together, these institutional layers show that licensing outcomes in Poland are shaped not by one regulator acting alone, but by sequencing across several authorities with different statutory mandates, evidentiary standards and procedures. In principle, the existing Polish framework can accommodate SMR deployment because it already contains the principal legal instruments needed for nuclear licensing, location, environmental review, construction and energy-market integration. However, the same framework was developed with large, site-specific projects in mind. The question is therefore not whether Polish law contains relevant procedures, but whether these procedures are sufficiently interoperable and adaptable to repeated, standardised or industrially embedded SMR projects.

5. Selected substantive and procedural mechanisms relevant to risk allocation

This section addresses the third analytical question of the article. It examines those substantive and procedural mechanisms that are especially relevant to risk allocation in early SMR projects. The common thread is that each mechanism affects the timing, allocation or mitigation of regulatory risk at the front end of the project cycle.

5.1. Decision-in-Principle

The first strategic administrative act in the Polish nuclear investment pathway is the decision-in-principle regulated by the Nuclear Special Act. It is issued by the minister competent for energy raw materials and serves as an ex-ante State-level assessment of whether the proposed project is acceptable from the perspective of national policy. Although it has an obvious policy dimension, it should not be reduced to a purely political endorsement. It is a statutory sequencing instrument with legal effects, even though it does not prejudge the outcome of later environmental, construction or nuclear-safety proceedings^[16].

In risk-allocation terms, the decision-in-principle partially shifts early policy risk away from the investor by signalling that, in principle, the project is compatible with national energy, security and development objectives. At the same time, it leaves the investor exposed to later environmental, safety and site-specific risks. For SMRs this matters especially where investors may seek to deploy a standardised technology across several industrial or municipal sites. The present design offers strategic de-risking, but not full portfolio de-risking. This interpretation is reinforced by recent legislative materials accompanying amendments to the Polish nuclear-investment framework. The explanatory memoranda and related impact assessments show that the legislator increasingly perceives the investment pathway in nuclear projects through the lens of sequencing, acceleration and the reduction of avoidable procedural friction. At the same time, these materials largely remain anchored in the paradigm of a major strategic nuclear investment. From the perspective of SMRs, this is revealing: the Polish legal system is already moving toward a more operational understanding of project timing and coordination, but it has not yet fully translated that understanding into a differentiated procedural logic for modular, repeatable and industrially embedded deployment models.

5.2. General Opinion of the President of the PAA

A second instrument of major importance for early risk allocation is the General Opinion (Ogólna Opinia) issued by the President of the PAA under Article 39b of the Atomic Law. Before submitting a formal licence application, an investor may request an opinion on planned organisational and technical solutions and on draft documents intended for a future licensing dossier. The opinion is not itself a licence and is not formally binding in the subsequent proceedings. Nevertheless, it creates a legally recognised pre-licensing channel for discussing decisive aspects of the future safety case^[17].

For early SMR projects, the General Opinion is particularly valuable because it allows part of the regulatory uncertainty to be confronted before the investor locks in the full sequencing of subsequent proceedings.

The public register maintained by the PAA shows that, by 31 March 2025, six General Opinions had been issued, including opinions concerning the BWRX-300 technology, selected NuScale issues and several issues linked to the AP1000 project.

This confirms that the instrument is already functioning as a practical pre-licensing mechanism in Poland, even though it does not yet amount to a formal generic design assessment or a codified modular evidence track for SMRs^[18].

5.3. Environmental assessment and spatial planning

Environmental assessment and spatial planning remain among the most consequential sources of early project risk. Under the Environmental Information and EIA Act, nuclear projects require a prior environmental decision on conditions, and the relevant procedure includes public participation and, where applicable, transboundary consultations. For investors, this is often the first legally intense phase in which project assumptions are exposed to a broad circle of authorities, stakeholders and potential appellants. In SMR projects the tension is particularly visible because standardised reactor technology does not eliminate the need for site-specific environmental proof.

The special-act location decision modifies the ordinary land-use pathway by replacing the conventional planning route with a dedicated instrument issued by the voivode. This is important from the perspective of risk allocation because it compresses a potentially fragmented planning landscape into a single investment-oriented decision. Even so, it does not eliminate substantive conflicts linked to land use, neighbouring functions, protected areas, infrastructure corridors or municipal planning choices. For industrial or district-heating SMRs, those interfaces may be especially sensitive because the project is more likely to be embedded in an already intensely used local environment. The legal challenge is therefore not to remove environmental or planning scrutiny, but to make better use of existing special-act tools so that generic and site-specific evidence are more clearly separated and sequenced^[19].

5.4. Emerging administrative practice and judicial review

Although Polish nuclear case law remains limited, recent administrative practice and judicial developments already indicate where legal friction is likely to arise first. The most important example concerns the environmental decision for the first Polish nuclear power plant. On 16 January 2025, the General Director for Environmental Protection partially repealed and, in the remaining part, upheld the earlier environmental decision concerning the planned first Polish nuclear power plant at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino location. The decision confirms both the legal centrality and the procedural fragility of environmental review in nuclear investments: even where the project remains legally viable, the environmental stage becomes a focal point for evidentiary contestation, participation claims and appeal-based delay risk^[20].

The subsequent procedural history is equally instructive. On 11 April 2025, the authority notified that a complaint against the decision had been transmitted to the Voivodship Administrative Court in Warsaw. This does not yet amount to a mature line of case law, but it illustrates a point that is highly relevant for SMRs: in Polish conditions, the first significant litigation pressure around nuclear projects is likely to materialise not at the level of the core nuclear licence, but at the interfaces between environmental assessment, siting and the broader legitimacy of project preparation^[21].

From the perspective of this article, the significance of these developments is not limited to one large-reactor project. They reveal the type of procedural vulnerability that may also affect SMRs, especially where standardised technology is combined with local environmental sensitivities, industrial siting and strong public-interest scrutiny. The practical lesson is therefore broader than the facts of one case: a legally workable SMR framework in Poland must be not only safety-oriented, but also procedurally resilient under judicial review.

5.5. Site Report, construction permitting and preparatory works

The Site Report (Raport Lokalizacyjny) occupies a particularly important place in the allocation of risk between the investor and the nuclear regulator. It assesses the site from the perspective of geological, hydrogeological, hydrological and meteorological conditions, external events, natural hazards, population density and the feasibility of emergency planning. The legal framework also allows the investor to submit a Preliminary Site Report and to seek an advance opinion from the PAA concerning the planned location or selected aspects of that location. It removes potentially fatal site objections and lowers sunk-cost risk.

At the construction stage, Polish law maintains a dual structure. On the one hand, the investor must obtain the Nuclear Construction Licence (Zezwolenie na Budowę) from the PAA under the Atomic Law. On the other hand, the investor must obtain the Building Permit (Pozwolenie na Budowę) from the competent Voivode under the Nuclear Special Act and the construction-law framework. This duality is rational because nuclear-safety review and general construction administration protect different interests. Yet it is also a classic site of procedural friction. If documentary expectations, technical assumptions or timing differ between the two tracks, the investor may be forced into iterative supplementation, redesign and repeated coordination. The same applies to preparatory works, which can accelerate execution only if the boundary between preparatory works and construction proper is clear and administratively manageable.

5.6. Grid connection and heat integration

Grid connection is often treated as a late-stage commercial issue, but from the perspective of project risk it must be analysed much earlier. Under the Energy Law, the relevant system operator determines the technical and economic conditions of connection and concludes the connection agreement, while the President of the URE performs dispute-resolution and concession functions. For early SMR projects, connection timing, network reinforcement requirements and the treatment of dispatchability and balancing obligations can materially affect the economic case for investment. This is especially true where the project is smaller than a conventional nuclear power plant and may be developed near industrial demand centres rather than on a traditional baseload generation site.

Heat integration is equally important. Polish law does not provide a dedicated licensing pathway for nuclear district-heating or process-heat projects as a separate category. In practice, therefore, heat-oriented SMRs must be developed through an interaction between the nuclear framework, the energy-law framework and the contractual arrangements of the local heat system or industrial off-taker. From a risk-allocation perspective, the absence of a dedicated heat-integration track does not make such projects unlawful, but it increases transaction costs and coordination burdens. This is precisely the type of area in which existing Polish procedures could be developed further without abandoning the core nuclear-safety logic of the current framework^[22].

6. Liability, insurance and State participation

Poland’s civil-liability regime for nuclear damage is regulated in Chapter 12 of the Atomic Law. It is structurally aligned with the Vienna model of nuclear third-party liability: strict liability, legal channelling to a single operator, mandatory financial security and a quantitative limitation of liability. For the purposes of this article, however, the significance of that regime lies not primarily in the autonomous doctrinal reconstruction of civil-law categories, but in the way it structures project governance, administrative credibility, investor expectations and the allocation of residual risk between operators, insurers and the State. That architecture remains broadly suitable for SMR deployment, but scaling modular projects across multiple sites and ownership structures exposes pressure points that are less visible in conventional large-reactor projects^[23].

The central pillar of the Polish model is legal channelling. The operator bears exclusive liability for nuclear damage caused by a nuclear incident in a nuclear installation or connected with that installation, while liability is strict and therefore independent of proof of fault. From the perspective of early SMR projects, this channelling logic remains functional, but it makes the designation of the legally responsible operator a decisive issue wherever projects involve complex special-purpose vehicle structures, industrial off-takers, multiple co-investors, phased commissioning or multi-unit sites. In a fleet model, operator identification becomes not merely a corporate matter, but a system-level element of risk allocation and bankability^[24].

Polish law caps the operator’s liability at the PLN equivalent of 300,000,000 SDR. Where aggregate claims exceed that amount, the law provides for the establishment of a liability-limitation fund, applying mutatis mutandis procedural techniques known from maritime limitation of liability. The cap therefore operates not only as a numerical ceiling, but also as an institutional mechanism for concentrating and proportionally administering mass claims. In SMR programmes this feature may become especially relevant if multiple units are deployed in parallel and social expectations shift from the logic of a single exceptional installation towards the logic of a repeatable technology.

Polish law recognises nuclear damage primarily through the classical categories of personal injury and property damage, while treating environmental damage through more specific public-law and remedial mechanisms. For the purposes of SMR deployment, the key point is not the detailed taxonomy of recoverable damage, but the need for clear coordination between liability law, environmental law and administrative remediation powers, especially where projects are embedded in industrial or district-heating infrastructure^[25].

The Atomic Law imposes a statutory obligation to maintain compulsory third-party liability insurance for nuclear damage. Supplementary context is also provided by the Regulation of the Minister of Finance of 14 September 2011 on the minimum guarantee amount for compulsory third-party liability insurance for reactors^[26]. Although the regulation does not concern SMRs directly, it is analytically relevant for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that Polish law already operationalises differentiated insurance minima for selected nuclear-risk situations, including research reactors and transport. Secondly, it confirms that the Polish legal system is not structurally incapable of calibrating financial-security obligations according to the type of installation or activity. The unresolved issue is therefore not whether differentiation is legally conceivable, but whether existing insurance and financial-security mechanisms are sufficiently updated and scalable for multi-site and fleet-based SMR deployment.

In addition to the general operator policy, the operator must conclude additional insurance covering nuclear damage during the transport of nuclear material from a nuclear installation. Polish law also sets a default allocation rule for transport: unless contractual arrangements provide otherwise, liability during transport rests with the operator of the sending installation, while an agreement with the recipient may modify that allocation. This interaction between statutory allocation and contractual design is particularly important for SMRs, because modular deployment can multiply the number of legally material handover points, including fuel delivery, module transport, commissioning interfaces, spent-fuel movement and returns from satellite industrial sites^[27].

A crucial point for this article is the role of the State. Chapter 12 does not establish a classic autonomous second tier in the sense of a fully separate compensation layer funded above the operator’s primary liability cap. However, Polish law does provide for a Treasury-guarantee element within the statutory compensation architecture. It would therefore be inaccurate to describe the Polish model as entirely devoid of public participation. The better view is that Poland retains a state-support element, but has not yet articulated a clearly differentiated, SMR-oriented second-layer framework suited to a multi-operator or fleet-deployment scenario^[28].

Against that background, the Polish framework appears normatively serviceable but only partially adapted to the specific risk profile of SMRs. Its strengths lie in structural coherence: strict liability, channelling, compulsory financial security, direct action against the insurer and procedural concentration of excess claims. Its weaknesses emerge under scaling pressure: operator designation across complex ownership models, repeated transport interfaces, uncertain insurance capacity for multiple projects, and the absence of a clearly articulated portfolio-level state-participation model tailored to modular deployment. Future legislative refinement should therefore focus not on abandoning the Vienna-model foundations, but on making them operationally credible for first-of-a-kind and fleet-based SMR deployment^[29], through clearer operator-designation rules, more standardised transport-liability arrangements, and a more explicit articulation of residual-risk participation by the State.

7. Conclusions and policy recommendations

The analysis confirms that Polish law already contains the basic instruments needed to accommodate early SMR projects. The Atomic Law, the Nuclear Special Act, environmental-assessment law, construction law and energy law together create a legally workable pathway from project conception to operation. The main weakness of the current framework does not lie in the complete absence of legal tools, but in the fact that those tools were largely calibrated for a small number of large, site-specific projects rather than for potentially repeated, industrially embedded and portfolio-based deployment of modular reactors.

The first policy conclusion is therefore institutional rather than conceptual: Poland does not need an entirely separate nuclear code for SMRs to move forward. What it needs first is a better use of the procedures already present in Polish law, especially those that permit earlier clarification of technical assumptions, earlier separation of generic and site-specific evidence, and better sequencing between parallel proceedings. The Decision-in-Principle, the General Opinion under Article 39b, the Preliminary Site Report pathway and the special-act location regime can all serve as building blocks for a more coherent SMR pathway if they are used and further developed in a coordinated manner.

Secondly, legislative refinement should concentrate on interoperability. The greatest avoidable risk for early SMR projects is not the existence of multiple procedures as such, but the lack of predictable interfaces between them. In practical terms, this means reducing duplication of evidence across nuclear, environmental and construction proceedings. Clarifying which evidence may be relied upon portfolio-wide and which must remain site-specific and creating more explicit administrative guidance for repeated or standardised projects are essential. Such an approach would preserve the high-assurance character of Polish nuclear regulation while making it more proportionate to the realities of modular deployment.

Thirdly, the State should treat grid and heat integration as part of the legal critical path rather than as a downstream commercial issue. For industrial and district-heating SMRs, the ability to connect to electricity and heat systems on a predictable timeline may become as important as the core nuclear authorisations. Administrative practice and, where necessary, legislation should therefore be developed to support earlier coordination between project developers, network operators, heat-system actors and the relevant public authorities.

Fourthly, the liability and insurance framework remains conceptually robust but requires adaptation at the level of implementation and residual-risk allocation. The Polish model should preserve strict liability, legal channelling and compulsory financial security, but it should also develop clearer rules for operator designation in multi-unit and multi-owner settings, more standardised transport-liability arrangements, and a more explicit State-participation model for early fleet deployment. Such refinements would be relevant not only to post-incident compensation, but also to financing conditions, insurer confidence and public trust.

Taken together, these recommendations support a gradual rather than revolutionary approach to reform. The Polish case should no longer be described as a simple tension between nuclear ambition and uncertain public acceptance. Current survey data indicate a strong and unusually stable social mandate for nuclear energy, while recent legislative amendments show that the legislator is increasingly aware of procedural timing and coordination problems in nuclear investment processes. At the same time, emerging administrative practice demonstrates that environmental review, procedural sequencing and judicial resilience remain decisive stress points. The central legal task is therefore more specific: to transform strategic ambition and public support into a differentiated, interoperable and review-resilient administrative framework capable of handling serial, modular and industrially embedded nuclear deployment.

1. Act of 29 November 2000, Atomic Law; Act of 29 June 2011 on the Preparation and Implementation of Investments in Nuclear Power Facilities and Related Investments. ↑
2. P. Betkowski, Legal aspects of small modular reactors in Polish nuclear law, Studenckie Prace Prawnicze, Administratywistyczne i Ekonomiczne, no. 45, 2023; R. Sam et al., Licensing small modular reactors: A state-of-the-art review of the challenges and barriers, in Progress in Nuclear Energy, vol. 164, 104859, 2023. ↑
3. Council of Ministers, Energy Policy of Poland until 2040 (EPP2040), adopted on 2 February 2021; OECD-NEA, Harmonising the Nuclear Licensing Process for Emerging Technologies: A Global Path Forward, Paris, 2022; Social acceptance in Poland for nuclear energy, see: https://www.gov.pl/web/energia/energetyka-jadrowa-z-niezwykle-silnym-mandatem-spolecznym-ponad-90-proc-polek-i-polakow-stawia-na-atom [consulted: 17.04.2026]. ↑
4. See: https://www.gov.pl/web/gdos/decyzja-generalnego-dyrektora-ochrony-srodowiska-z-dnia-16-stycznia-2025-r-znak-doos-oa420512015192 [consulted: 17.04.2026]. ↑
5. Council Directive 2009/71/Euratom of 25 June 2009 establishing a Community framework for the nuclear safety of nuclear installations, as amended by Council Directive 2014/87/Euratom; Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage of 21 May 1963, as amended by the 1997 Protocol. ↑
6. R. Sam et al., Licensing small modular reactors: A state-of-the-art review of the challenges and barriers, op. cit.; OECD-NEA, Harmonising the Nuclear Licensing Process for Emerging Technologies, op. cit. ↑
7. Ministry of Climate and Environment, Draft update of the National Energy and Climate Plan for 2021-2030 (October 2024). ↑
8. Ministry of Industry, Program polskiej energetyki jadrowej, consultation draft of 25 June 2025; Priority P30 – Ramy rozwoju energetyki jadrowej w Polsce, governmental priority materials published in 2025. ↑
9. Polish Economic Institute, Prospects for the Use of SMRs in Poland’s Energy Transition, Warsaw, 2023; P. Zarebski et al., Small Modular Reactors as a Solution for Renewable Energy Sources Integration and Energy Transformation in Poland, in Energies, 2023, vol. 16, no. 18, 6491. ↑
10. G. Locatelli, M. Mancini, N. Todeschini, Small modular reactors: A comprehensive overview of their economics, strategic aspects, and deployment potential, in Progress in Nuclear Energy, 2014, vol. 73; B. Mignacca, G. Locatelli, Economics and finance of Small Modular Reactors: A systematic review and research agenda, in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 118, 2020. ↑
11. D.K. Chmielewska-Smietanko et al., Selected Legal and Safety Aspects of the Coal-To-Nuclear Concept in Poland from the Perspective of Small Modular Reactors, in Energies, vol. 17, no. 5, 1128, 2024. ↑
12. IAEA, Phase 2 Mission to Poland in Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR), 2025. ↑
13. L. Mlynarkiewicz, Decyzja zasadnicza w procesie inwestycyjnym w zakresie obiektow energetyki jadrowej – ocena stanu prawnego oraz zmian wprowadzonych w 2023 roku, in Prawo i Wieź, no. 4, 2024. ↑
14. Act of 3 October 2008 on Access to Environmental Information, Public Participation in Environmental Protection and Environmental Impact Assessments. ↑
15. Act of 5 July 2018 on the National Cybersecurity System. ↑
16. L. Mlynarkiewicz, Decyzja zasadnicza…, op. cit. ↑
17. T.R. Nowacki, Opinions of the President of the National Atomic Energy Agency under Articles 36a and 39b of the Atomic Law as an example of pre-licensing of nuclear facilities, in Studia Iuridica, 2021. ↑
18. PAA, Wydane ogolne opinie Prezesa PAA, official register page updated on 31 March 2025. ↑
19. D.K. Chmielewska-Smietanko et al., Selected Legal and Safety Aspects…, op. cit. ↑
20. See: https://www.gov.pl/web/gdos/decyzja-generalnego-dyrektora-ochrony-srodowiska-z-dnia-16-stycznia-2025-r-znak-doos-oa420512015192 [consulted 20.04.2026]. ↑
21. https://www.gov.pl/web/gdos/zawiadomienie-generalnego-dyrektora-ochrony-srodowiska-z-11-kwietnia-2025-r-znakdoos-oa420512015198 [consulted 20.04.2026]. ↑
22. Polish Economic Institute, Prospects for the Use of SMRs in Poland’s Energy Transition, op. cit.; D.K. Chmielewska-Smietanko et al., Selected Legal and Safety Aspects…, op. cit. ↑
23. Act of 29 November 2000, Atomic Law (Prawo atomowe), Chapter 12; IAEA Office of Legal Affairs, Country Factsheet: Poland, treaty status under the Vienna Convention, the 1997 Protocol and the Joint Protocol. ↑
24. Act of 29 November 2000, Atomic Law (Prawo atomowe), Chapter 12; P. Nowakowska, Legal Mechanisms Influencing the Scalability of Nuclear Liability Risk for Operators within the Polish Legal Framework, in Nuclear Inter Jura Congress papers, 2025. ↑
25. P. Nowakowska, Legal Mechanisms Influencing the Scalability…, op. cit. ↑
26. See: https://www.dziennikustaw.gov.pl/D2011206121701.pdf. ↑
27. E. Ameye, Liability for Nuclear Transport: a pragmatic case study approach, including SMRs, Nuclear Inter Jura materials, 2024. ↑
28. P. Nowakowska, Legal Mechanisms Influencing the Scalability…, op. cit. ↑
29. J. Weibezahn, & B. Steigerwal, Fission for Funds: The Financing of Nuclear Power Plants, Copenhagen School of Energy Infrastructure, CSEI Report No. 2024-1 https://doi.org/10.22439/csei.rep.2024.1, 2024. ↑