According to media report: Ministry of Economic Affairs rejects allegations of nuclear shutdown

As of: April 25, 2024 5:22 p.m

According to a media report, employees in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Environment are said to have suppressed internal concerns about the timely nuclear phase-out. The ministry rejected the allegations. The Union requests a special session.

The Federal Ministry of Economics has rejected a report by the magazine “Cicero” according to which important employees of Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (both Greens) are said to have suppressed internal concerns about the sense of a timely nuclear phase-out. The magazine’s presentation was “truncated and without context,” the ministry said. Accordingly, the conclusions drawn from this are “not accurate”.

In its reporting on the topic, “Cicero” refers to internal correspondence between the two ministries. The magazine relies on documents that it received after a legal dispute on the basis of the Environmental Information Act. These are two “well-filled file folders”. A “Cicero” journalist had sued for the release of the documents that had previously been kept secret.

A Draft note from March 3, 2022

According to the report, experts in the Federal Ministry of Economics were “hardly listened to” and their assessments were “ignored or falsified”. Accordingly, employees of Habeck’s ministry argued in a draft note dated March 3, 2022 that, under certain circumstances, a limited extension of the service life of the remaining German nuclear power plants until the following spring could make sense. They advised that this possibility be further examined. The paper is also available to the German Press Agency in Berlin.

According to the ministry, at the management level the document was only available to State Secretary Patrick Graichen, a party friend of Habeck’s, who later had to leave office after allegations of nepotism – it would not have reached the minister.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs says that the paper was included in a later published audit note by the ministries of economics and the environment, in which they spoke out against an extension of the term – with reference to the “very high economic costs, constitutional and security risks”, as it was stated in one press release said.

In another case, according to the “Cicero” report, Graichen formulated a note in which he argued for the timely nuclear phase-out and which he forwarded to Habeck. The head of the department for nuclear safety and radiation protection in the Ministry of the Environment, Gerrit Niehaus, raised concerns about the content.

Ministry: “Examination always open-ended and transparent”

The ministry says that since the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine in February 2022, they have repeatedly addressed the question of whether and to what extent extending the operating times of the three German nuclear power plants that were still running at the time could increase energy security. “This review was always open-ended and transparent.”

“A broad, well-founded, open and critical discussion was held at an early stage within the ministry, between departments and with the power plant operators and various arguments were heard and weighed” on the “benefits, opportunities, risks and hurdles of a possible extension of the operation” of the German nuclear power plants , explained the ministry. “All of these arguments were incorporated into the weighing process, the formation of opinions and the results.”

Considerations and decisions were based on the information available at the time and “in view of the real situation, which only changed and worsened over the course of the months”. The note from March 3 mentioned by “Cicero” only contains individual aspects.

Union requests special session

The Union demanded that Habeck immediately clarify the circumstances surrounding the decision to phase out nuclear power in 2023. “The old suspicion is confirmed: Parliament and the population were lied to when nuclear power was phased out,” wrote the Parliamentary Managing Director of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei, on Platform X . “Habeck should immediately put all the files regarding the closure of the nuclear power plant on the table. Otherwise there will be repercussions.”

Dem “Mirror” Frei also said that, as a first step, the Union would request a special session, which should take place before tomorrow’s plenary session. A committee of inquiry may also be under discussion if the Green politician refuses to provide information.

On April 15, 2023, Germany finally phased out nuclear power and shut down the last three reactors: Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland. Dismantling has begun and could take up to 15 years. The power plants were originally supposed to be taken off the grid at the turn of the year, but operation was extended to secure the power supply. The Greens had resisted such a step for a long time, but in the end Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) spoke out.

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