This afternoon, the European Commission unleashed a months-long argument by labeling it ‘sustainable’ against the will of member states, part of Parliament, its own experts and its own investment bank in gas and nuclear energy. With this she hopes to release tens of billions for investments in those two dirty energy sources.
According to the Commission, gas is needed as a semi-dirty source to help Member States with the sometimes very difficult transition from coal to clean sources such as solar and wind, and nuclear energy is then needed as a stable electricity supplier in the background to be able to absorb shortages in, for example, long-term periods with little wind. Nuclear energy is a practically CO2-free source, but it does have its own problem: nuclear waste decomposes very slowly. The Commission says it sees those concerns, “But we need all the resources,” said EU Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness.
This afternoon, Dutch MEPs immediately reacted with deep disappointment to the upgrading of gas and nuclear. Bas Eickhout (GroenLinks) speaks of ‘a historic mistake that undermines the entire EU climate policy’, Paul Tang (PvdA) of ‘a diabolical deal’ between supporters of gas and nuclear energy. Left-wing groups in Parliament are already working hard to get a majority to vote down the Commission proposal.
‘Commission makes a fool of the Netherlands’
Some Member States are also against it. Austria and Luxembourg have already announced that if politically unsuccessful to block the proposals, they will go to the European court. At the beginning of this week, the Netherlands, along with Austria, Denmark and Sweden, urged the Commission to keep gas out of its proposals. The Netherlands would have agreed to gas if the Commission could have guaranteed that CO2 pollution had remained very limited, but the Commission was unable to do so. Tang’s conclusion: “The Commission makes a fool of the Netherlands.” He is counting on the new government to be consistent and to vote against it later in the Council of Ministers.
The Commission itself was also divided on the proposal, which required a vote – which is not often the case – but according to McGuinness, the result was ‘an overwhelming majority’. Earlier, Von der Leyen already received fierce criticism for her draft proposal, without consultation in the college, to send to the Member States at 5 to 12 on New Year’s Eve.
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