The EU Commission wants to classify the energy sources gas and nuclear power as “green”. The vote on this will take place in the European Parliament at the beginning of July. Now two important committees have rejected von der Leyen’s plans.
The EU Commission’s plans to classify nuclear energy and gas as sustainable are met with resistance in the European Parliament. The responsible committees for environment and economy voted in Brussels on Tuesday against the inclusion of both forms of energy in the so-called green taxonomy. MEPs from the Greens saw this as a “severe defeat” for EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
At the beginning of February, von der Leyen’s authority had proposed including nuclear energy and fossil natural gas in a list of sustainable energy sources in addition to wind and sun. This is intended to stimulate investment. With the help of the Taxonomy Regulation, the EU wants to implement its climate plans called Green Deal and become climate-neutral by 2050.
However, the proposal fell through in the responsible parliamentary committees for environment and economy: 76 MEPs voted against, 62 voted in favor, there were four abstentions. The vote was considered an important mood test for the plenary debate in the first week of July.
The energy expert of the Greens in the European Parliament, Jutta Paulus, spoke of a “clear signal to stop the greenwashing of nuclear power and gas”. Greenpeace said MPs refused to “feed more money into Putin’s war machine.” The organization criticizes the fact that Russia continues to supply natural gas to Germany and other EU countries despite the war in Ukraine.
In the Berlin traffic light coalition, the Greens in particular are opposed to the sustainability seal for nuclear power. On the other hand, the federal government supports the classification of gas as a transitional energy.
