The environmental protection organization WWF has sharply criticized the EU Commission's proposal to classify nuclear energy as climate-friendly under certain conditions.
"Close your eyes and through, that seems to be the motto of the EU Commission for nuclear power and natural gas," commented Matthias Kopp, Head of Sustainable Finance at WWF Germany, on Sunday in Berlin.
After months of delays, the Commission gave the expert groups of the member states only eight working days to deal with the relevant draft.
The EU Commission wants to classify investments in gas and nuclear power plants as climate-friendly under certain conditions. This emerges from the draft legal act of the Brussels authority, which became public on New Year's Day. Specifically, the proposal provides that planned investments in new nuclear power plants, especially in France, can be classified as green if the systems meet the latest technical standards and a specific plan for a disposal facility for high-level radioactive waste is submitted by 2050 at the latest.
Scientists, citizens and financial institutions are excluded from the "mini-consultation", criticized the WWF expert.
The EU Commission knows that it is "leaving the science-based path".
Kopp: "That's why she wants to keep the expected critical voices out of the consultation process as far as possible." EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is gambling away trust with the approach and thus jeopardizing her own "Green Deal" for sustainable growth in the European Union.