EU leaders clash on climate funding, nuclear power

BRUSSELS: European Union leaders clashed at the start of a summit on Thursday over the bloc's plans to tackle climate change, arguing over how to pay for the green transition and what role nuclear power should have.

Brussels´ new leadership, under European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, wants member states to commit to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. But at least three coal-hungry countries in the east of the bloc are holding out for a more detailed promise of funding for their energy transition.

Opposition to the 2050 target from eastern members such as the Czech Republic and Poland will feed into what is expected to be a long, bitter summit debate about climate change and the long-term EU budget. Von der Leyen´s "European Green Deal" includes a plan to mobilise 100 billion euros to help countries with the move towards carbon neutrality, but critics say this is not enough.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who wants more detailed assurances about funding, said the Czech republic alone would need 30 to 40 billion euros ($27 to $36 billion) to achieve carbon neutrality, while Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda estimated the transition would cost two-thirds of his country´s GDP.

Babis also wants the summit conclusions to explicitly mention nuclear power -- the latest draft seen by AFP simply acknowledges member states´ right to "decide on their energy mix and to choose the most appropriate technologies". And he took aim at countries like Austria and Luxembourg for refusing to agree to the EU endorsing nuclear energy as green.

"Nuclear energy is clean energy without emissions. I don´t know why countries have a problem with this," Babis said as he arrived, after earlier accusing Austria of hypocrisy over its power supplies. "This morning at a quarter to eight, Austrians consumed 23 percent of Czech electricity, Slovakia 30 percent. If we hadn´t supplied Austria with energy, a quarter of them wouldn´t even make coffee." French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country gets more than two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear, backed the Czechs, saying even the IPCC had agreed atomic power should play a role.