– The German government has criticized the European Commission’s position on declaring nuclear energy “green”. It suggests that other EU countries should follow Germany’s path and switch from nuclear power to gas. This would put all of Europe in a position of dependence on Russian energy supplies – wrote “Die Welt”, pointing out that Berlin force Europe to make a pact with Russia.
Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck referred with indignation on Saturday to the attempt to understand nuclear power “green”. Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit announced unequivocally on Monday that “we explicitly reject nuclear power assessments”. At the same time, however, he welcomed the European Commission’s proposals to classify gas as a sustainable energy source under certain conditions. This is “in line with the position of the federal government”, “Die Welt” recalled.
“It is difficult to understand such an assessment of the federal government,” the newspaper noted.
The European Commission’s decision “to promote gas as a bridging technology seems far more problematic, both from the point of view of climate policy and geopolitics, than the German government’s criticism of the EU’s decision to favor nuclear power,” wrote “Die Welt”.
“The agitation in Germany is artificial,” environmental expert Ralf Fuecks told “Die Welt”. After all, everyone, including the European Commission, “knows that a climate compromise at European level is only possible if both competing climate change paths are taken into account. On the one hand, we have the special German path of using gas as a medium-term substitute for coal and nuclear energy. On the other hand, there is the path favored in particular by the French of achieving climate neutrality with a significant share of nuclear energy,” the paper stressed.
Even more problematic from a security policy point of view, however, is that the Brussels formula compromise on gas and nuclear power was concluded without any foreign policy risk assessment, which because of Russia’s threatening gestures on the EU’s eastern flank is already an astonishing denial of reality.
“We urgently need a common European foreign energy policy that reduces dependence on Russian natural gas,” Fuecks postulates. However, the European Commission’s decision on gas taxonomy goes in exactly the opposite direction.