Led by Germany, a group of five Member States (Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain and Germany) called on the European Commission to keep nuclear energy out of the scope of the EU taxonomy, in a joint letter obtained by EUROPE on Friday 2 July.
Adopted in June 2020 (see EUROPE 12509/12), the EU Taxonomy Regulation (2020/852) aims to define which investments can be considered environmentally sustainable and thus help investors in their choices.
It is to be supplemented in due course by delegated acts relating to the various parts of the regulation (see EUROPE 12392/14).
While the first of these, presented by the Commission on 21 April, does not cover nuclear power, the institution plans to include this sector in the taxonomy via a subsequent delegated act (see EUROPE 12703/2). This possibility is opposed by the five countries mentioned above.
“We are concerned that including nuclear power in the taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness”, write the seven ministers who signed the letter.
Contrary to a recent report by the Commission’s scientific service (the ‘Joint Research Centre’ or JRC), according to which nuclear energy fulfils the criteria for inclusion in the taxonomy (see EUROPE 12688/5), these ministers consider that nuclear energy is incompatible with the ‘do no significant harm’ principle of the Taxonomy Regulation.
According to them, the JRC report has two “grave methodological shortcomings”.
The first is that it fails to address the residual nuclear risk.
The second is the issue of nuclear waste. The Ministers are concerned that the principle of ‘no undue burdens on future generations’ may be violated because the JRC’s assessment of deep geological repositories is “is based on concepts that are all unproven”.
Finally, they criticise the fact that the report was analysed by two scientific committees (see other news) “whose areas of expertise are limited to health and radiation protection”, thus omitting to examine “the specific environmental aspects”.
See the letter: https://bit.ly/3y8e9jc (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)