Brussels (energate) - The delegated climate taxonomy regulation presented by the EU Commission at the beginning of the year threatens to be overturned by the EU Parliament. In this regulation, financial investments in natural gas and nuclear energy were to be classified as not harmful to the climate (energate reported). This had already met with great criticism in the EU Parliament (
energate reported). A cross-party alliance of members of the Environment Committee (ENVI) and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) now voted against the Commission's proposal with a narrow majority of 76:62. Now the plenary session of the EU Parliament will vote in the plenary week starting 4 July. If the plenary votes in the same way as the members of both bodies, the regulation cannot enter into force. This is because it is sufficient for one of the two EU co-legislators - the Council with a qualified majority or the EU Parliament with an absolute majority - to vote against.
No rejection is to be feared from the Council, because 20 out of 27 countries would have to vote against the proposal. Only a handful of EU countries, including the German government, are against the EU Commission's proposal. "Under the auspices of the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, we are working in the coaltion government in the circle of member states to ensure that nuclear and gas - not least because of the great dependence on Russia and other authoritarian states for gas and uranium - do not come into the taxonomy," State Secretary for Economic Affairs Sven Giegold (Greens) stressed. Therefore, it depends on the vote in the EU Parliament.
VKU criticises vote
The Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) reacted with concern. "A rejection of the delegated act by the European Parliament in the July vote would be a very problematic signal for the energy and financial sectors," VKU Chief Executive Ingbert Liebing said. Then the German government would have to act at the national level and provide the right framework conditions very quickly with needs-based support and a suitable market design, Liebing stated. Without this support, he said, it would not be possible to operate new power plants and CHP plants economically. /rl/ck
