“In its statement, the federal government will be firmly convinced that nuclear energy cannot be classified as sustainable. We consider the technology to be too dangerous, and among other reasons, the issue of final storage has still not been clarified,” said deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann on Friday in Berlin.
What is meant is the opinion on the so-called taxonomy proposal of the EU Commission, which stipulates that gas and nuclear power plants should be classified as “green” investments under certain conditions. Germany and the 26 other EU member states can comment on this proposal until midnight on Friday.
In the past, the German government had advocated a corresponding classification for gas-fired power plants, but they firmly rejected a “green” label for nuclear power. Government spokeswoman Hoffmann confirmed the classification of gas: “Basically, the federal government regards gas as a bridging technology.” When asked by journalists whether a bridging technology could be sustainable, Hoffmann referred to the statement that is still in progress, but which, according to her, will arrive in Brussels punctually by midnight.
The spokeswoman left open whether Germany’s statement would be publicly available after it had been sent to the EU. That is “usually not the case”, but in this case no decision has been made. In a joint appeal on Friday, several environmental organizations called on the federal government to disclose the contents of the taxonomy statement.
In Germany, the decades-long phase-out of nuclear energy is almost complete. The last three nuclear power plants in the country will be shut down by the end of this year.