Steffi Lemke, the German minister for the environment and nuclear security, visited Warsaw and took part in talks with the Polish Climate Minister Anna Moskwa.
The two ministers discussed Polish-German cooperation in the area of climate and environment on the EU forum.
“Although our positions in this debate sometimes differ, an example of which is our differing approach to the future of nuclear energy, we see huge potential in cooperating to achieve common goals,” Moskwa said.
While reporting on the meeting, Deutsche Welle reminded, that the entire German government has rejected the inclusion of nuclear energy in the taxonomy of renewable energy sources. Polish plans to build nuclear power plants have sparked concern in Germany due to potential threats.
“It is an important subject in our talks, and security and waste disposal are a priority to us,” minister Lemke stated.
She also declared “If nuclear reactors are built in Poland, then we will operate with the use of appropriate legal tools, this is obvious to me.” The German minister added, that Berlin was of the opinion that nuclear energy was neither a good nor a secure assurance of energy transfer in the future.
Deutsche Welle noted that Germany wants to deactivate its remaining three nuclear power plants by the end of the year.
Lemke’s words were tempered by the German ambassador to Poland.
“Such an interpretation is false. Each country decides about its own energy mix. Minister Steffi Lemke clearly underlined that in Warsaw. She was talking about legal instruments at the EU level. This does not entail a lawsuit but a trans-border evaluation of the effect on the environment,” Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven wrote on Twitter.
One of the Twitter users was fast to point out that Germany, with a number of nuclear power stations built across the country, is eager to tell Poland not to build its first one.
According to the Polish government’s plans, the first nuclear power plant will be built in Poland by 2033. It will be co-founded and constructed by the United States.
