20 major trade unions of Belgian, Bulgarian, Czech, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Slovakian and Slovenian employees in the energy sector have sent, once again, a collective letter to the European Parliament members of the ECON, ENVI and ITRE Committees urging them to vote for (or at least, not oppose to) the Complementary Delegated Act of the European taxonomy providing for the inclusion of nuclear and gas.
For more than a year now, European trade unions have joined forces and carried out various actions in their countries and at the European level in favour of the inclusion of nuclear power in the European taxonomy on the basis of neutral technology and science based evidences, and insisting on the key role of nuclear energy in enabling Europe to achieve carbon neutrality, including two letters to the Presidency of the European Commission (cf. previous Press Release, « It’s time now to include nuclear energy in a delegated act of the European taxonomy », July 2021).
For the employees of the electricity and gas industries represented by the European trade unions who signed this letter, the inclusion of nuclear and gas in the European taxonomy is of primary importance for the climate challenge, for diversifying energetic supplies and increasing European energetic independence, for social justice, for economic sustainability and for the future of their jobs in an essential industrial and service sector. Also, the war in Ukraine is a wake-up call for Europe to diversify its energy resources and reinforce its energetic autonomy.
We want to emphasize that the Complementary Delegated Act was the best compromise that could be reached. Considering nuclear energy as a transition energy cannot be considered as appropriate; however, the transitional qualification for nuclear energy is better than not having it at all covered by the Taxonomy. A contrario, the transitional dimension of gas in the CDA is appropriate considering that some investments will be necessary for the diversification of EU gas resources (and putting an end to Russian dependency).
No energy source able to provide low carbon dispatchable baseload electricity can be ignored. Consequently, the signatory European Energy trade unions consider that it is of the utmost importance to have the Complementary Delegated Act approved by a majority in the European Parliament.
Our organisations are committed to the success of European climatic ambitions and want to contribute to the European objectives of energy security, economic recovery, industrial relocation, energy and industrial sovereignty, in a socially just and sustainable way to achieve Europe's climate objectives. Together, we stand stronger!
TEK has supported this initiative because of its positive attitude towards nuclear power, as nuclear power is an important source of clean energy for Finland and Europe at large. In principle, TEK does not support the inclusion of natural gas in the taxonomy, but accepts the simultaneous inclusion of nuclear power and natural gas in the taxonomy as a compromise.
TEK and the French CFE-CGC have been preparing all the letters to the Commission as well as the bulletins. We have also worked together to get other unions involved.
