Friction looms for German government over EU energy investment plans

Berlin (dpa) – The European Commission’s new plans on how to classify energy investments, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, is provoking heated debate within Germany’s new three-way coalition government.

The commission’s proposal to categorize some nuclear and gas power production as climate friendly when it comes to investments was long-awaited and is proving controversial: They have already generated the threat of a lawsuit from the Austrian government.

A recent change of government in Germany – where the coalition now includes the Green Party – has made the issue a highly sensitive one in Berlin.

“We will examine the EU proposal rapidly and coordinate within the federal government,” new Environment Minister Steffi Lemke – from the Greens – told the Rheinische Post newspaper on Monday.

“The EU Commission is risking blocking and damaging truly sustainable investments in favour of dangerous nuclear power,” Lemke said.

“I also think the inclusion of natural gas [as a climate-friendly energy source] is questionable.”

Her Green Party colleague, Economy and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck, had previously said he could not envisage the government agreeing to the plans as they stand.

Lukas Köhler, a senior parliamentarian from the Free Democrats – a pro-business party which is also part of the governing coalition – has made it clear meanwhile that blocking the EU proposal is not an option.

“From our point of view, there will be no qualified majority against the commission’s proposal on nuclear power, so it is right to continue working on this proposal,” he told Die Welt newspaper.

FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner has given the proposal to include gas a positive reception, but noted in a newspaper interview the “different perceptions” of nuclear energy between Brussels and Berlin.

Responding the Greens’ criticism, FDP vice chairman Wolfgang Kubicki told the newspaper Bild that the new government will “have to find a consensus” but he added: “You are not a good European if you only accept decisions that suit you.”

Matthias Miersch, a senior Social Democrat – the largest party in the new coalition – has come out against the nuclear part of the commission’s plans.

Supporters argue that gas-powered plants, by virtue of being cleaner than coal and other alternatives, help economies on the path to an environmentally sustainable future. Nuclear power would be labelled as green because it emits no greenhouse gases.

But opponents argue that “cleaner” is not clean when it comes to gas and point out that the long-term risks of radioactive waste outweigh its lack of carbon dioxide emissions in the short-term.

According to the proposal, investments in nuclear power plants would be counted as green if they used the newest technological standards and if they included a concrete plan for disposal of atomic waste to go into use by 2050 at the latest.

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, former German chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to phase out nuclear power.

The country’s last nuclear power plant is set to go off-grid by the end of 2022.