Committee of inquiry on German nuclear phase-out likely soon
Published: Tuesday, Jun 4th 2024, 16:40
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In all likelihood, the Bundestag in Germany will deal with the final nuclear phase-out in a committee of inquiry in the 2025 election year.
The issue at stake is how the "traffic light" government of the SPD, FDP and Greens came to its decision on a possible lifetime extension of nuclear power plants in 2022. According to information from the German Press Agency, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group initiated the establishment of such a Bundestag committee on Tuesday. The votes of the largest opposition faction in parliament are sufficient for this.
In 2011, Germany decided to phase out nuclear power over a period of around a decade. According to the law, the last three of the original 17 reactors - Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2 and Isar 2 - should have been shut down by December 31, 2022. Due to the energy crisis resulting from the loss of Russian gas supplies in the Ukraine war, the operating period was extended by three and a half months to April 15, 2023.
The Christian Democratic opposition believes that a significantly longer operation would have been necessary and possible, meaning that these nuclear power plants could still be supplying electricity now. One accusation is that the Federal Ministry of Economics, which is controlled by the Greens, cited flimsy reasons to thwart this.
The Greens emerged from the West German anti-nuclear movement in 1980. Phasing out nuclear power has therefore always been one of their most important political goals. In a radio interview on Tuesday, CDU/CSU parliamentary deputy Jens Spahn accused the Greens of putting party interests above the interests of the country.
©Keystone/SDA
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