On the evening of Monday, 16 December, European Parliament negotiators gave the green light to the compromise text amended by the EU Council (see EUROPE 12391/10) on the regulation laying the foundations for the future taxonomy on sustainable finance. An agreement was reached by videoconference between the co-legislators, a European source confirmed.
"We made history: co-legislators reached a deal on an EU taxonomy for green economic activities", said Vice-President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis on Twitter.
As the initial compromise reached between the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU and the representatives of the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12026/4) did not obtain the required majority last week at the meeting of Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper), the Finnish Presidency was asked to review its text (see EUROPE 12388/16) in order to strengthen technological neutrality in the text and open the door a little further to the inclusion of nuclear and gas in the taxonomy.
In press releases, MEPs involved in the negotiations, such as Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA), French MEP Pascal Canfin (RE) and Finnish MEP Sirpa Pietikainen (EPP), all considered that the balance of the compromise had been maintained.
The final agreement therefore does not exclude any specific technology or sector from the category of 'green' activities, with the exception of solid fossil fuels, such as coal. The production of gas and nuclear energy is not explicitly excluded from the Regulation. These activities can potentially be described as "enabling" or "transition" activities, if they pass the "do not significant harm" test.
To fall into these categories, nuclear power will have to pass this test, including a test on waste, explained Yannick Jadot (Greens/EFA, France).
But the battle is not over yet. The proposed regulation only lays down the principles and general scope of the future taxonomy. As a second step, it is planned that the Commission will establish in 2020 and 2021, by means of delegated acts and on the recommendation of a group of technical experts, the technical criteria on the basis of which it will be possible to determine whether and to what extent an economic activity is environmentally sustainable.
It is therefore at this point that the issue of nuclear and gas will resurface, since the Commission will have to decide under what conditions these activities could be part of the taxonomy.
The agreement will be submitted to Coreper for approval on Wednesday 18 December. It will also have to be approved in January by the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and Environment Committee (ENVI) and then confirmed by a vote in plenary session. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana and Solenn Paulic)