Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck has criticized France's energy policy with its focus on nuclear power as backwards.
"What France is doing at the moment is a very planned economy, capped energy supply for an old-fashioned industry," said the Green politician on Wednesday at an economic conference in Berlin.
France has to renovate its numerous old nuclear power plants at a cost of around two billion euros per plant.
But old kilns would become more and more prone to failure.
Investing in new ones didn't pay off either: "If you build new ones, it all takes four times longer and the costs are huge." He is certain that nuclear energy will not give his neighbors a competitive advantage.
"We'll meet in 2030," he said, referring to France.
Germany, on the other hand, relies on renewable energy: "It will be a location advantage for the German economy to go this route."
Against the resistance of Germany and other states, France had pushed through in the EU that nuclear power should be labeled as sustainable energy in the so-called taxonomy.
This makes it easier to attract private investment in this technology.
About 70 percent of the French power supply, based around the state-dominated EDF group, comes from nuclear energy.
The state repeatedly intervenes in pricing policy.
The strict opponent of nuclear energy Austria has already announced a lawsuit against the EU taxonomy.
Luxembourg wants to join.
Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection, Steffi Lemke (Greens), also thinks it is possible that Germany will also take part.
“I am not yet familiar with the Austrian application.
We will examine what aspects are presented there and how important they are.
We will then discuss this within the federal government and find a position on it, ”said Lemke at a round of talks at the Europe 2022 conference of several German media.