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Robert Habeck calls France's energy policy old

2022-02-09T18:16:37.502Z


The EU Commission has classified nuclear power and gas as sustainable. France played an important role against Germany's resistance. Economics Minister Habeck criticizes Parisian politics.


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Robert Habeck

Photo: Chris Emil Janssen / imago images / Chris Emil Janssen

Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck described France's energy policy as backward.

"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.

Habeck reported that France had 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 the neighbors a competitive advantage.

"We'll meet in 2030," said the minister, 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.

Critics complain that the taxonomy loses credibility with atom and gas.

Immediately after the decision, Habeck and Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (both Greens) said in a joint statement that the EU legal act was a big mistake.

This could "severely damage the taxonomy as a whole and endanger our climate goals," said von Lemke.

Both ministers reiterated their clear opposition to classifying nuclear power as a sustainable investment.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-02-09

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