2022 is the critical year in green transformation

Policy makers in Europe started the new year with the draft text of the European Commission leaked to the media. According to the draft, nuclear energy and natural gas are classified as green investments under certain conditions. Almost all of 2021 was spent with discussions on this issue, and EU countries were divided into two. While the group led by France wanted nuclear to be classified as green investment, the other group led by Germany was against it. Now this draft will be evaluated in European capitals first. Each member state will submit its views on the subject to the European Commission by January 12. The Commission will finalize the draft by the end of the month and send it to the European Council and the European Parliament for approval. The issue must be resolved within a maximum of 6 months. It seems that the group led by France won the first round and they are favorites in the second round that starts with the new year. Because, in order to reject the proposal, 20 countries representing 65 percent of the EU population in the European Council and the majority of the deputies in the European Parliament must vote NO. Austria, which is in the anti-nuclear group, stated that if the proposal becomes law, it will take the issue to the European Court of Justice. However, Germany showed that it would not support Austria in this context, by declaring that "The Commission is on legally safe ground".

What could be the political repercussions?

By the end of 2021, Germany, which closed 3 of its remaining 6 nuclear reactors, aims to get out of nuclear completely by the end of 2022. Looking at the figures for 2021, it seems that Germany, which meets 12 percent of its current electricity production from nuclear, will increase its dependence on natural gas in the near term. This indicates that Germany will enter a critical and well-managed period in its bilateral relations with Russia and then the USA. Recently, it has been written in the German media that Chancellor Scholz wants to take two important foreign policy issues into his own hands, such as "Russia" and "Green Transformation.” France is preparing for the elections to be held in April 2022. With the new year, the EU Presidency passed from Slovenia to France. Political experts say that this development will be in favor of Macron in the election race. In addition, Macron managed to score points by succeeding in putting nuclear energy in the green investment class. With this step, the hand of France, which provides 70 percent of its electricity production from nuclear energy, was relieved for the transition period and strengthened in the use of the EU Recovery Fund. So, is there any problem in the relations between the two big countries of the European Union, Germany and France? The answer of experts to this question is no. Although there are hesitations about the interests of France in nuclear energy in Germany, it is interpreted that maintaining good relations in this period is in the interests of both sides.