The European Parliament on Wednesday decided to vote against removing gas and nuclear energy from EU energy transformation. This means that these energy sources will be regarded as being “green” and investments in them will be liable for EU financial support.
According to analysts from the Polish Economic Institute (PIE), the European Parliament decision is critical for Polish energy sovereignty. They believe that the EU taxonomy can now help Poland build its nuclear power capacity.
The EU’s taxonomy is a document which acts as guidance towards sustainable investment towards a green transformation. If any form of energy investment is excluded from the taxonomy, it may fail to get EU support for sustainable development.
Poland’s energy security strategy assumes the construction of both nuclear and gas power plants. The European Parliament’s decision to include these two sources of energy will help Poland to gradually reduce its dependence on coal.
The decision by the European Parliament is also helpful to Germany and France. France will benefit because it has invested greatly in nuclear power while Germany is using gas to produce electricity.
The war in Ukraine has forced countries to seek alternative sources of energy. Atomic energy increases energy security and is a zero-emission source which does not generate CO2 costs that coal does. According to the PIE experts, the failure of the EU to invest in nuclear power has driven up electricity bills for all Europeans.
The European Commission included gas and energy in its proposal on taxonomy, but a significant number of MEPs wanted to remove both these sources from the document. However, the opponents of nuclear and gas power lost the vote in the European Parliament by 328 to 278 votes.
