While the European Commission is expected to present, before the end of the year, a delegated act aimed at completing the regulation (2020/852) on the European Union’s taxonomy, the Austrian Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy, Leonore Gewessler, has already warned that her country is ready to refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) if nuclear energy is included in the regulation, according to remarks reported by the media outlet Euractiv on Thursday 18 November.
Asserting that “there is no legal basis for including nuclear energy in the taxonomy”, the minister stressed the need to ensure the “credibility” of this classification system, which is intended to help investors determine which economic activities can be considered sustainable.
This is one of the main arguments of the alliance of six EU Member States (Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Portugal and Spain) opposed to the inclusion of nuclear in the taxonomy. On 11 November, at COP26, five of them issued a joint statement to plead their case (see EUROPE 12831/9).
On Thursday, an alliance of eight German banks (Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, ING Germany, BNP Paribas Germany, LBBW, DKB, DZ Bankand Umweltbank) issued a joint statement stressing that there is “little room” for fossil gas and nuclear power in the taxonomy.
See the statement (in German): https://bit.ly/3qT2CUr (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)