Ribera, concerned about the EC's decision on investment in nuclear and gas: "What is not considered green is what it is not"

MADRID, 7 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, expressed her concern on Thursday about the approval in the European Parliament of the decision of the European Commission (EC) to include gas and nuclear energy as investments sustainable.

"We do not share it, we believe that natural gas, nuclear energy, logically are transitional solutions with which we are going to continue living, but that does not mean that they are green. We find the delegated act of the EC unfortunate. Obviously, we respect the vote of the Plenary of the European Parliament, but in the end it seems to us that it is to consider green what it is not", Ribera asserted in an interview on Radiotelevisión del Principado de Asturias collected by Europa Press.

In this sense, the minister has assessed that the decision is explained in the context of the current energy emergency and because "some Member States of the European Union" are "very focused on new investment" in these technologies.

However, he has opined that neither nuclear nor gas "are going to provide a solution in the very short term" to the current energy situation.

Regarding the international context of energy and the possibility of a total cut in the supply of Russian gas to Europe, Ribera has indicated that he is "greatly concerned", and has underlined that the continent is experiencing "energy blackmail by Putin's part.

In relation to this, he recalled that on July 11 there will be a cut in the supply of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline (which carries gas from Russia to Germany) due to maintenance reasons, and has emphasized that "there is a concern very high" about the possibility that these operations take longer than usual.

In fact, the president of the Federal Agency for Energy Networks of Germany, Klaus Mueller, recently expressed his suspicion that the next temporary closure could end up being the prelude to a complete suspension in retaliation for international sanctions.