GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel has defended a cabinet ally for proposing a rethink of the government’s policy of reviving nuclear energy.
The move has prompted speculation that Dr Merkel is changing her stance on nuclear energy to reach out to the Green Party and its voters.
After last year’s election, her Christian Democrats (CDU) agreed to scrap a Green Party deal from 2000 to wind down the country’s nuclear plants, beginning this year.
Now CDU environment minister Norbert Röttgen has told energy companies that, far from lifting the death sentence on German nuclear energy as promised, he will grant their power plants only a stay of execution.
Berlin is not interested in “cementing the role of nuclear energy”, he said, “but finding out how we detach ourselves from it”.
“Renewable energy is the goal, nuclear energy is a bridge that will only be there long enough until it can be replaced by dependable renewables,” said Mr Röttgen.
Germany derives 23 per cent of its energy from nuclear sources and 16 per cent from renewables.
A government spokesman said yesterday Berlin had not changed its position on nuclear energy and would present a new national energy concept in October.
Dr Merkel has brushed off claims of treachery from her Free Democrat (FDP) coalition partners and from CDU state environment ministers.
Under the 2000 nuclear plan, the first three plants come off the grid this year. Speculation is growing that Mr Röttgen will get them to close on schedule to demonstrate the CDU’s change of heart on nuclear energy.
After that, even if he sets aside the 2000 agreement, the minister has noted that the next nuclear plant will have to close in five years under the terms of their 40-year operating licences.
Once a firm fan of nuclear energy, the CDU began backing away last year with an election promise not to build any new nuclear power plants.
A CDU-Green coalition, once politically unthinkable, has been a reality in Hamburg since 2008. A second such alliance may be possible after May’s election in North-Rhine Westphalia, and political observers say a federal CDU-Green coalition is now more a matter of when rather than if.
Meanwhile, Dr Merkel has distanced herself from FDP leader Guido Westerwelle for claiming Germany’s social welfare system breeds “late Roman decadence”. A spokesperson described Mr Westerwelle’s remark as “not the chancellor’s style”.