Hermann sharply rejects EU push for nuclear power

Created: 01/05/2022Updated: 01/05/2022, 7:11 AM

Winfried Hermann during a conversation with the dpa.

© Marijan Murat / dpa

Transport Minister Winfried Hermann has sharply criticized the EU's position on nuclear power.

"If the EU Commission now recommends gas and nuclear energy as a" sustainable investment "and releases them from the harmful effects, it is acting contradictingly and inconsistently," said the Green politician of the German press agency in Stuttgart.

Stuttgart - "If this wrong use of the term sustainability should prevail, then the linguistic addition:" black "or" dirty "sustainability is imperative."

When it comes to energy supply, gas causes somewhat fewer greenhouse gases than coal and oil, but these greenhouse gases also represent long-term and expensive damage to the climate, said Hermann.

Previously, Baden-Württemberg's Environment Minister Thekla Walker (Greens) had described the EU Commission's initiative, according to which nuclear energy should be classified as climate-friendly, as an absolutely wrong path.

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The EU Commission wants to classify investments in gas and nuclear power plants as climate-friendly under certain conditions, as emerges from the draft for a legal act by the Brussels authority, which became public on New Year's Day.

Specifically, the proposal provides that investments planned in France in new batteries in particular 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.

The red-green-yellow federal government has announced that it does not want to approve the EU plans, which is unlikely to prevent them.

dpa