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Brussels (dpa) - France wants to campaign more strongly in the EU for a CO2 tax on certain imported goods from less climate-friendly countries.
"The CO2 border tax will be at the center of the French EU Council Presidency from January 1, 2022," said France's Minister of Economic Affairs, Bruno Le Maire, in an interview with the newspapers of the Funke media group and the French newspaper "Ouest-France" (Monday).
Such a border adjustment, which is also advocated by the European Parliament, is intended to prevent European companies from relocating their production abroad because they are subject to less strict climate protection rules there.
One of the hurdles of the project that is being discussed in the EU, however, is that such a mechanism must conform to the rules of the World Trade Organization, as the German government had emphasized in the past.
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Le Maire also insisted once again that the EU should recognize nuclear power as CO2-free energy and promote it accordingly.
"Europe will not achieve the goal of CO2 neutrality by 2050 without nuclear power," Le Maire told the newspapers.
"All of our European partners must understand that nuclear power is one of the essential foundations of competitiveness and sovereignty of France, but also of European energy sovereignty."
France is still considered to be the “atomic country” of Europe.
According to earlier information, it ranks second behind the USA among the largest producers of nuclear power worldwide.
By contrast, Germany decided in 2011 to gradually phase out nuclear energy by 2022 at the latest.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210426-99-353308 / 2