“Green” label on nuclear energy from the EU: Austria reacts by appealing to European justice

The Austrian government appealed yesterday Friday to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) against the Commission’s decision to put a “green” label on nuclear energy, the Ministry of the Environment announced in Vienna.

The Alpine country, historically opposed to nuclear energy, has been hammering this plan of the European Commission from the beginning and had declared for a long time that its intention was for the matter to be decided by justice.

“Nuclear power and natural gas are neither green nor sustainable forms of energy,” Minister Leonore Gevesler (Greens) explained in a press release released by her services. “That’s why we appealed, before the Monday deadline.”

The Kurier earlier published the information that the Austrian government appealed to the CJEU, without citing a source. The newspaper added, however, that the appeal has little chance of success.

In its arguments, the Austrian government invokes procedural errors and also points out that it is far from usual for such important political decisions to be taken by the European Commission, the Kurir clarified.

Mrs. Gevesler had denounced at the beginning of the year, when Brussels revealed the disputed text, the “great environmental damage” caused by nuclear power. For her, nuclear energy belongs “to the past”.

The recognition of the contribution of nuclear energy and gas in the fight against climate change by the Commission also causes indignation among ecological organizations, which accuse Brussels of falsely and misleadingly characterizing these forms of energy as environmentally friendly, of engaging in “greenwashing”. (“greenwashing”).

The text, approved in July by the European Parliament, is in theory intended to allow private capital to be invested in activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. It subscribes to measures to achieve the goal of the EU achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

Based on expert reports, it calls certain investments to produce electricity through nuclear and gas-fired plants “sustainable”, provided they use the most modern technologies. And also that they will allow coal-burning and far more polluting plants to be closed.

Among the 27 EU member states, only eight countries, including Germany and Luxembourg, expressed their opposition to this “classification”. Their number is a far cry from the “supermajority” of the twenty states required to reject the plan.

On the contrary, France and countries of central and eastern Europe defended it, arguing that renewable energy sources (wind energy, photovoltaics) alone do not allow energy needs to be met due to the fact that by their nature they do not allow uninterrupted production.

Austria banned nuclear power by law in 1978; the measure was written into the country’s constitution in 1999.

The country of 9 million people currently derives more than 75% of the energy it consumes from renewable sources, mainly thanks to its large hydropower potential.

However, it continues to import energy — notably produced by nuclear power plants — to meet its needs.

RES-EMP

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