Finance Commissioner Maired McGuinness defended the project: “The EU has committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, and we must use all available means to do so.” The main thing is to accelerate the phase-out of coal. According to the Commission, gas and nuclear power are needed for the transition to completely CO2-free energy production. McGuinness also stressed: “The EU taxonomy is not an energy policy measure. Each country still decides on its own energy mix.”
The legal act that has now been adopted provides that investments in new gas-fired power plants are considered sustainable until 2030 under certain conditions: These must replace dirtier power plants, i.e. those for coal and oil, and be operated entirely with climate-friendly gases such as hydrogen by 2035.
The EU Commission has thus further weakened its original draft, which it published on December 31, 2021. It stipulated that gas-fired power plants would have to add climate-friendly gases as early as 2026. The weakening is probably a concession to Germany, which firmly rejects the declaration of nuclear power as sustainable, but strongly relies on gas as a transitional technology.
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New nuclear power plants are to be classified as sustainable by 2045 if there is a concrete plan for the disposal of radioactive waste from 2050 at the latest. Research and development with regard to new nuclear power technologies and the upgrading of existing nuclear power plants up to 2040 in order to extend their service life are also considered to be sustainable.
criticism from economists
There has been a lot of criticism of the delegated legal act for a long time, not only from environmentalists and politicians, but also from economists. Ifo President Clemens Fuest said, for example: “It is absurd to write down a list of economic activities where you then decide politically what is funded and what is not”. That is a planned economy. It is clear that only unsatisfactory results could come out.
Jan Pieter Krahnen, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Financial Market Research (Safe), criticizes what he believes to be the lack of dynamism in a taxonomy. “This cannot bring about a process of change, but merely cement a snapshot,” says Krahnen.
Instead, transparent indicators on climate change and minimum standards from the legislature based on this data are needed. “And the capital market has to do the rest, and it can do that too,” says Krahnen.
Since this is a delegated act, the EU Commission does not need the consent of the Council and Parliament for the regulation to come into force. The planned date is January 1, 2023.
However, both institutions have the opportunity to lodge an objection within four months. The Council has the right to reject the act by a reinforced qualified majority. This requires the votes of at least 20 member states, which together represent at least 65 percent of the EU population. However, the taxonomy opponents are in the minority in the Council.
There has been massive criticism of the EU Commission’s plans.
(Photo: dpa)
Austria has therefore already announced that it will go to the European Court of Justice. Luxembourg wants to join this. The Commission reacted calmly to this threat. “We are sure that what we have presented is legally watertight,” said an EU official on Wednesday.
The EU Commissioners of the two countries, Johannes Hahn and Nicolas Schmit, had also announced that they intended to vote against the proposal at the decision-making Commission meeting this Wednesday. However, this only has a signaling effect.
The European Parliament is currently the biggest hurdle for the delegated act. A majority of at least 353 MEPs is needed there to reject the project in plenary.
“It’s going to be tight”
SPD deputy Joachim Schuster suspects that around 200 to 250 EU deputies are currently firmly opposed to the sustainability classification of gas and nuclear power. There are still about 100 to 150 more dissenting voices missing.
These are now being tried to organize across factions. The Green MEP Michael Bloss said: “A rejection by the European Parliament is possible.” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had not consulted the EU Parliament once about her plans until recently, “other groups don’t like that either”, so just.
There are also negative voices from von der Leyen’s own party family. “The European Commission has thrown all the critical feedback it received on the first draft of the delegated act to the wind,” criticizes EU parliamentarian Markus Ferber (CSU). “There will be a vote in the European Parliament at the end and it will be close.”
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