"We are not here to define the energy policies of any country. We are here to emphasise that it is really a bad decision to place nuclear within the European taxonomy. It is not safe, it is not sustainable and it costs a lot of money", he argued.

European financing, stressed Matos Fernandes, should be directed towards other options, mainly wind and solar energy, and he added that they are in contact with the private sector to take this same position.

“All the money that goes into nuclear energy is definitely money that should be put into renewable energy and that's what the world needs. We need energy, but it doesn't come from fossil [fuels]. And we need energy that does not contain nuclear waste”, he insisted.

In an intervention before Matos Fernandes, the German Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze, stated that “nuclear energy cannot be a solution to the climate crisis” because it is too risky, too slow and not sustainable.

Currently, around 12% of Germany's electricity comes from nuclear and half from renewable sources.

In 2011, after the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that it would end the country's 17 nuclear power plants by 2022, despite fears that this would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to the use of gas and coal.

France is the third largest producer of nuclear energy in the world, behind the United States and China.