Member States' ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) expressed several concerns, on Wednesday 11 December, about the compromise reached last week between the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU and representatives of the European Parliament on the regulation laying the foundations for the future taxonomy on sustainable finance (see EUROPE 12026/4).
Although there was no formal vote, the round table revealed that there is currently no majority in favour of the text and the Finnish Presidency was therefore invited to review it, a European source said. "The concerns expressed were significant enough for the Presidency not to take the risk of reaching an agreement on this basis", explained the same source.
The United Kingdom, France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria reportedly expressed concerns about the way in which the text regulates technological neutrality. These countries consider that the text is too focused on the risk of damage to the environment and climate objectives and not on the actual damage.
But behind the scenes is still the question of the inclusion of nuclear energy, raised by France.
While the compromise text excludes nuclear energy from "green" activities, it does not expressly exclude it from the other two categories provided for "transition" and "enabling" activities. Introduced by Parliament, the principle of "do no significant harm" is supposed to complicate the inclusion of nuclear energy in these categories.
These countries would like to see an adjustment of the text that"opens the door a little more" to the inclusion of nuclear energy, according to this source. For others, on the contrary, the current compromise text currently does not go far enough in excluding nuclear energy. This is particularly the case in Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.
"France must abandon its blockade and withdraw its request for renegotiations (...) The stubborn insistence on nuclear power in sustainable financial products endangers the success of the whole project", Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany) criticised in a statement.
A diplomatic source, for its part, considered that the Finnish Presidency had "exceeded" the EU Council's mandate on "important points". Nevertheless, according to this source, this situation is only a "mere vagary" in the context of the "normal course of the legislative procedure".
"It's not at all blocked; we're in the finishing stages", commented a second diplomatic source, confident that an agreement could be reached next week.
However, this twist is no less embarrassing, even though it comes on the same day that the European Commission unveiled the European Green Deal, which is supposed to put the EU on the path to climate neutrality in 2050, with finance having its role to play (see other news).
The Finnish Presidency will therefore present an amended text to the Member States at the Coreper meeting on Monday 16 December. At the time of going to press, no date had yet been confirmed for new interinstitutional negotiations ('trilogue'), but the date of 16 December was mentioned.
According to the same sources, the ambition is still to reach an agreement before the end of the year. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana with Camille-Cerise Gessant)