Just two weeks ago, Chancellor Scholz put his foot down in the dispute over Germany’s nuclear power plants. But now there is new trouble in the traffic light. The FDP takes up reports of alleged bias in the nuclear power plant test report by green-led ministries and demands clarification.
It was not necessarily to be expected that the traffic light coalition would no longer argue about nuclear power after Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave his word of power – but it came as a surprise that the debate boiled up again two weeks later. The FDP is currently firing on the Greens from almost all guns. The party even sent Economics Minister Robert Habeck a list of questions, as reported by the “Bild” newspaper.
“I find it very confusing that the two Green-led ministries apparently did not base their decision on the issue of the extension of the term on the facts and assessments of independent experts, but decided in advance to reject the extension of the term,” said FDP Secretary General Dijan Bjir -Sarai at the request of ntv.de with. It is “very amazing that the responsible ministries believe that they can make these decisions purely on the basis of green beliefs”.
What’s going on there? The excitement was triggered by reports from the weekend that the green-led ministries for economics and the environment, contrary to their own promises, had not really checked openly whether the German nuclear power plants could or should continue to operate beyond the end of the year. The “Welt am Sonntag” and the magazine “Cicero” refer to 166 internal documents. They therefore suggest that arguments for continued operation could have been ignored.
Other FDP top politicians made angry statements via “Bild”. Bundestag Vice-President Wolfgang Kubicki said that he expects “for further discussions about energy supply beyond April 15, 2023 that he (Economics Minister Robert Habeck, ed.) puts the well-being of the country above the well-being of his own party friends”. Group leader Dürr is quoted as calling for a “solid factual basis” that is needed for the “decision on fracking” and the question “how we will deal with next winter”.
However, the report in question provides no evidence that Habeck and Environment Minister Steffi Lemke specified the result of the test. However, there were definitely voices in the ministries that did not find an extension of the term as absurd as it sounded in the end when Habeck and Lemke presented the report on March 8th. An assessment by the Federal Network Agency was only available afterwards and a conversation with the nuclear power plant operators no longer influenced a ready-made text. Lemke said at the time, two weeks after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, that longer terms were neither sensible nor justifiable. In “ntv Frühstart” Habeck stated that longer runtimes are off the table. The core of the argument was that nuclear power does not help to save gas.
Chancellor Scholz spoke at the federal press conference this Monday and said that Habeck had “performed an open-ended examination” and kept providing information about it. The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economics, Beate Baron, also rejected the accusation.
When asked by ntv.de, Baron pointed out that the situation on the energy markets had changed again and again in recent months – Russia stopped supplying all of its gas and in France more and more nuclear power plants went offline.
Both were later arguments for the continued operation of the German nuclear power plants and were not yet an issue in the test report from early March. Finally, according to Baron, at the beginning of September, after the second stress test, it was recommended that the two southern German nuclear power plants should be “kept available”, which was also referred to as reserve operation. Her tenor: With the changing situation, the ministries also adjusted their assessment of the situation. It was at least unfortunate that Lemke claimed in March that continued operation would not bring more electricity. This was later refuted.
Meanwhile, the FDP was demanding more and more vehemently that the three German nuclear power plants should continue to operate. Reserve was not enough for her. Party leader and Minister of Finance Christian Lindner not only advocated a stretching operation into the next year, but also the purchase of new fuel rods so that the power plants can still produce electricity in the coming winter. The reactivation of already decommissioned nuclear power plants was also discussed.
That was again impossible for the Greens. The fronts hardened, Habeck and Lindner seemed irreconcilable – up to the chancellor’s word of power. When Scholz decided that all three nuclear power plants should remain connected to the grid until April 15, calm returned. The Greens officially rejoiced that the nuclear phase-out would definitely come on April 15, the FDP celebrated the success of having even pushed out an extension.
That was two weeks ago. The fact that the FDP is now attacking the Greens again is not the end of the nuclear compromise. But it shows that she takes every opportunity to fire a broadside at the coalition partner. Who, for his part, had attacked the FDP two weeks ago: Green MP Anton Hofreiter said in “ntv Frühstart” that the Liberals were “ideologically stubborn” and that is why they had to support the extension of the term until April. Habeck sowed doubts about the reliability of the FDP – he said he assumed that the party was faithful to the treaty and “would not damage the Chancellor’s authority”.
The FDP – unlike the Union – is not yet demanding the continued operation of the nuclear power plants beyond April of the coming year. As long as the peace lasts, there is another topic that the FDP and the Greens can argue about: fracking. At the weekend, Lindner demanded that the controversial method be used to pump natural gas in Germany. The SPD and the Greens rejected this in unison. Djir-Sarai now told ntv.de that “it is no longer possible to rely on the relevant ministries carrying out tests with an open-ended and fact-based basis.” This also applies to the question of the extraction of domestic shale gas deposits.
