(AGENPARL) – Wed 10 September 2025 PRESS RELEASE No 113/25
Luxembourg, 10 September 2025
Judgment of the General Court in Case T-625/22 | Austria v Commission
Austria’s action against the inclusion of nuclear energy and fossil gas in
the sustainable investment scheme dismissed
The Commission was entitled to take the view that certain economic activities in the nuclear energy and fossil
gas sectors can, under certain conditions, contribute substantially to climate change mitigation and climate
change adaptation
In 2020, the EU legislature (namely the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union) adopted the
Taxonomy Regulation, 1 by which it established a framework to facilitate sustainable investment. That regulation is
aimed at channelling finance flows towards sustainable activities with a view to achieving a climate-neutral
European Union by 2050. 2 To that end, the regulation lays down the criteria for determining whether an economic
activity qualifies as environmentally sustainable for the purposes of establishing the degree to which an investment
is environmentally sustainable.
In order to qualify as environmentally sustainable, an economic activity must, inter alia, according to the Taxonomy
Regulation, contribute substantially to one or more environmental objectives without causing significant harm to
any of those objectives, and comply with certain technical screening criteria to be established by the European
Commission.
The EU legislature thus delegated to the Commission the task of establishing technical screening criteria for
determining the conditions under which an economic activity qualifies as contributing substantially to climate
change mitigation or climate change adaptation and for determining whether that economic activity causes
significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives. On that basis, in 2021 the Commission adopted a
delegated regulation establishing technical screening criteria for activities in the renewable energy sector. 3
In 2022, the Commission adopted another delegated regulation, 4 by which it established technical screening criteria
to include certain activities in the nuclear energy and fossil gas sectors in the category of activities contributing
substantially to climate change mitigation or climate change adaptation.
Austria 5 brought an action before the General Court of the European Union, seeking the annulment of that
delegated regulation.
The General Court dismisses the action brought by Austria and thus upholds the Commission delegated
regulation.
According to the General Court, by including nuclear energy and fossil gas in the sustainable investment scheme,
the Commission did not exceed the powers which the EU legislature properly conferred on it.
Specifically, the Commission was entitled to take the view that nuclear energy generation has near to zero
greenhouse gas emissions and that there are currently no technologically and economically feasible low-carbon
alternatives at a sufficient scale, such as renewable energy sources, to cover the energy demand in a continuous
Communications Directorate
Press and Information Unit
curia.europa.eu
and reliable manner.
The Commission took sufficient account of the risks associated with normal operation of nuclear power plants,
serious reactor accidents and high-level radioactive waste. In particular, the Commission was under no obligation to
require a level of protection going beyond the existing regulatory framework. The arguments put forward by Austria
relating to the negative effects of droughts and climate hazards on nuclear energy are too speculative to be
accepted.
Moreover, as in the case of other economic activities in the energy generation sector, the Commission was under no
obligation to take into account extraction and processing of uranium ore, uranium refining, conversion and
enrichment, and fuel assembly and transport, which are upstream or downstream activities, or armed conflicts,
sabotage and risk of abuse and proliferation of civilian and military applications.
Lastly, the General Court endorses the view that economic activities in the nuclear energy and fossil gas sectors can,
under certain conditions, contribute substantially to climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. The
approach taken by the 2022 delegated regulation is a gradual approach based on a reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions in stages, while allowing for security of supply.
NOTE: An action for annulment seeks the annulment of acts of the institutions of the European Union that are
contrary to EU law. The Member States, the European institutions and individuals may, under certain conditions,
bring an action for annulment before the Court of Justice or the General Court. If the action is well founded, the act
is annulled. The institution concerned must fill any legal vacuum created by the annulment of the act.
NOTE: An appeal, limited to points of law only, may be brought before the Court of Justice against the decision of
the General Court within two months and ten days of notification of the decision.
Unofficial document for media use, not binding on the General Court.
The full text and, as the case may be, the abstract of the judgment is published on the CURIA website on the day of
delivery.
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Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate
sustainable investment.
Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 June 2021 establishing the framework for achieving climate
neutrality (‘European Climate Law’) sets out a binding objective of climate neutrality in the European Union by 2050 in pursuit of the long-term
temperature goal set out in the Paris Agreement, namely holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels
(https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf).
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139 of 4 June 2021 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2020/852 by establishing the technical screening
criteria for determining the conditions under which an economic activity qualifies as contributing substantially to climate change mitigation or climate
change adaptation and for determining whether that economic activity causes no significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives.
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/1214 of 9 March 2022 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139 as regards economic activities in
certain energy sectors and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178 as regards specific public disclosures for those economic activities.
Before the Court, Austria is supported by Luxembourg, while the Commission is supported by Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary,
Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.
Communications Directorate