While the question of including gas and nuclear power in the EU sustainable finance taxonomy had already been the subject of intense lobbying when the legislative text was negotiated between the EU Council and the European Parliament, the lobbyists do not seem to have had their final say.
Data published on Tuesday 25 August by the organisation Reclaim Finance show that lobbying on this dossier has accelerated, with a view to the adoption, by the end of the year, of the first delegated regulation establishing the taxonomy for climate change mitigation and adaptation (see EUROPE 12453/25).
The organisation reviewed the data submitted by several gas and nuclear companies and lobbies to the EU Transparency Register since 2018. According to its conservative estimate, 189 stakeholders in these two industries mobilise a total of 825 lobbyists and spend between €71.4 and €86.6 million per year to influence EU decisions.
And, according to Reclaim Finance, the European Commission has largely listened. Between January 2018 and July 2020, EU officials reportedly held no fewer than 310 meetings with lobbyists from these sectors, including 52 between March and July 2020, following the publication of the final recommendations of the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (see EUROPE 12442/14). There was also a slight increase in the frequency of these meetings after March, from 2.28 to 2.86 meetings per week.
The organisation, which fears that gas and nuclear could be reintegrated into the taxonomy, is calling on the Commission to “cut all ties with fossil fuel lobbies”.
As a reminder, during their negotiations, the EU Council and Parliament agreed to explicitly exclude power generation activities based on solid fossil fuels, such as coal. However, for nuclear energy and gas, the question had been left for later (see EUROPE 12393/20).
In March, the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance indicated that it was not in a position to conclude that nuclear power was not causing significant damage to other environmental objectives and therefore recommended further work on the issue. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)