Members of the European Parliament adopted a proposal to reform the bloc’s electricity market in the Strasbourg plenary on Thursday, September 14th, rejecting a motion from 180 MEPs seeking to include protections for nuclear power.
The proposal—which seeks to balance out market rules and subsidize certain energy sources—was initially adopted at the committee level based on the report by Spanish MEP Nicolás González (S&D), which has been criticized for “restricting financing options for the construction of new nuclear reactors and the lifetime extension of existing ones.”
However, pro-nuclear MEPs weren’t even given the opportunity to bring their arguments to the floor, as the package was presented to a final vote this week without a prior plenary debate, which—understandably—made many of them feel cheated.
On Tuesday, September 12th, around 180 MEPs submitted their objection to the vote, seeking to find a way to reinstate the nuclear plant’s subsidy mechanism into the text—which was included in the Commission’s original proposal before it was scrapped by the socialist rapporteur.
At last, however, the pro-nuclear motion was defeated by a (mostly) leftist majority of MEPs, allowing the vote to go ahead on Thursday. The package was adopted by 366 votes in favor, 186 against, and only 18 abstentions—meaning that the anti-nuclear version will be the Parliament’s official position during the trilogue negotiations with the Council and Commission to finalize the law.
If the objection had gone through, “we would have been able to make minor corrections to the text so that everyone would be on the same page,” French MEP Christophe Grudler (Renew), the one behind initiating the motion said, explaining that the MEPs in the plenary would have had the possibility to table amendments before voting on it at a later date.
Yet, the battle for nuclear energy is just starting. First, EU member states in the Council will have to agree on their position to present during the trilogues, which is much harder than reaching a majority in the Parliament.
For one, they have yet to agree on the Polish request to waive CO2 emission limits for its coal plants as a backup if other sources are deemed insufficient, while Paris is expected to fight for the inclusion of the subsidy mechanism for nuclear at all costs against the opposition of Germany, Austria, and Luxembourg.
Furthermore, the parliamentary motion against the file—which gathered 35% support from MEPs—might also complicate the trilogues, as it considerably weakens the EP’s position in the upcoming negotiations.
The initiative, although failed, “proves that there is no unanimity in the Parliament on this text,” Grudler said, adding that “the EU Council will not fail to remind [the EP’s negotiator] of this.”
