EU Green Rulebook Saga Rumbles on as Austria Takes Bloc to Court
(Bloomberg) -- Austria, one of the continent’s starkest opponents of nuclear power, filed a challenge against the European Union’s decision to declare the fuel and natural gas as clean energies.
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The country filled the suit over the EU’s new classification system known as taxonomy on Friday at the European Court of Justice, according to Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler. The classification provides guidelines for investors to establish which investments can be considered environmentally friendly in order to spur the energy transition.
READ: EU Lawmakers Remove Last Hurdle to Label Gas, Nuclear as Green
It’s the latest sign that the controversy surrounding the decision by the European Commission to include gas and nuclear in the bloc’s green rulebook from the start of next year is likely to rumble on. A number of environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, have also undertaken legal challenges.
The process could take as long as two years to resolve, according to the ministry.
Luxembourg has pledged to support the motion and the Austrian government is hoping other member states will also back its claim. Including gas and nuclear “doesn’t solve the problem of climate change, but deepens it,” Gewessler told reporters Monday.
Critics, including scientists and experts from the commission-convened Platform on Sustainable Finance, have argued that the inclusion of gas is not in line with the bloc’s goal to become climate neutral by the middle of the century. Proponents, including central and Eastern European states have said the fuel is crucial during the transition to help them shift away from coal.
Last month, a number of NGOs walked out from the Platform on Sustainable Finance in protest at what they saw was the politicizing of the bloc’s green rulebook, rather than being based strictly on science. A last ditch objection by lawmakers failed to get the necessary backing to overturn the commission’s decision earlier this year.
“The commission wanted to bring clarity to the market for green finance,” said Sebastian Mack, a policy fellow for European financial markets at the Jacques Delors Centre. “But with the controversial delegated act, the commission has provoked lawsuits that bring new uncertainty and damage the acceptance of the taxonomy.”
Unlike neighboring Germany, where authorities pledged to shut down nuclear plants after the accident in Fukushima, Japan, Austria has never had functioning atomic power generation and relies on decades-old hydro plants to produce most of its electricity. It all but completed the construction of a nuclear plant in the 1970s but a last-ditch referendum blocked it from going online.
READ: EU’s ‘Fake’ Green Label for Gas and Nuclear Under Legal Attack
Austria’s filing is built on sixteen arguments, including claims that nuclear energy is not sustainable due to storage needs for spent fuel. Gas, as a fossil fuel, can not be ecological by definition, it claims.
“There was no public consultation,” said Gewessler. The decision was made to please the strong interests of the nuclear and gas industries.
(Updates with quote from Sebastian Mack in seventh paragraph.)
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