2024-04-28 11:54:08
Before the nuclear phase-out, employees of Economics Minister Habeck are said to have not taken internal concerns into account. This emerges from files that have now been published. Habeck’s house rejects the allegations.
The Green Party Minister Robert Habeck and Environment Minister Steffi Lemke are under pressure over the decision made two years ago about a possible extension of the service life of nuclear power plants. The CDU/CSU parliamentary group is demanding clarification on this and has requested special meetings of Bundestag committees.
The trigger is a report by the magazine “Cicero”, according to which internal concerns about the nuclear phase-out planned for the following year were suppressed in both the economics and the environment ministries in spring 2022 – which both ministries deny. Shortly before, Germany’s most important gas supplier, Russia, had attacked Ukraine, which sparked considerations in Germany about securing energy supplies.
On Friday morning, the committees for climate protection and energy as well as for the environment will meet for special meetings in Berlin at the request of the Union. From circles in the Union faction it was said that a parliamentary committee of inquiry was expressly reserved. What is now very important is the willingness of Economics Minister Habeck and Environment Minister Lemke to be transparent. Both want to appear at the special meetings, as spokesmen from both ministries told the German Press Agency.
“Cicero” bases its reporting on the topic on internal correspondence from the two ministries. A journalist from the magazine successfully sued for the release of the documents that had previously been kept secret.
Explosive note from March 3, 2022
Specifically, it is about the following, among other things: Employees of Habeck’s ministry argued in a draft note dated March 3, 2022 that under certain circumstances a limited extension of the operating 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. “The presentation is shortened and without context, and the conclusions drawn from it are therefore incorrect,” said a spokeswoman about the reporting as a whole.
The Federal Environment Ministry rejected allegations of “ideological actions” and also spoke of “media misunderstandings”. According to the ministry responsible for nuclear safety, the review was carried out “carefully and exclusively in a fact-oriented manner”.
Criticism of Habeck and demands for clarification
The environmental policy spokeswoman for the Union parliamentary group, Anja Weisgerber (CSU), told the German Press Agency in Berlin: “If technical arguments are sacrificed to the party line, then this not only leads to serious wrong decisions, but also undermines trust in politics and administration in total.” The energy policy spokesman Andreas Jung (CDU) demanded clarification from Habeck. “To do this, he has to answer questions personally and put all the documents on the table.” There is an accusation that the public and parliament were deliberately deceived “by distorting the facts”.
The FDP energy politician Michael Kruse also expressed sharp criticism of Habeck: “The Habeck Papers show that Germany was knowingly misled when it came to phasing out nuclear power. I am disappointed in Robert Habeck because the citizens of this country and also his coalition partners were told the truth withheld.”
On April 15, 2023, Germany finally phased out nuclear power and shut down the last three reactors. 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 ultimately supported the concept of a temporary operational reserve for two of the last three German nuclear power plants presented by Habeck and the nuclear power plant operators in September 2022. The FDP was fundamentally in favor of a longer term. In October 2022, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) spoke out about the continued operation of all three reactors until spring.
The German nuclear phase-out originally goes back to the decision of a black and yellow federal government under the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). It was a reaction to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.