Belgium will shut down its current seven nuclear reactors as planned by 2025, but is not closing the door to new generation nuclear power, according to an agreement reached Thursday morning between the partners of the government coalition.
A government source confirmed to AFP this agreement reached after a night of negotiations.
It provides "
an investment of around 100 million euros in research on small modular reactors
" (SMR), said this source.
A press conference is scheduled for 11:00 am local time (10:00 GMT) at the headquarters of the Prime Minister's Chancellery to detail the agreement.
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The gradual phase-out of nuclear power has been enshrined in law in Belgium since 2003. The last deadline adopted is the year 2025, a date that the current government has undertaken to respect when it takes office in October 2020.
"Current nuclear obsolete"
But the dossier divides the ruling coalition, which mainly associates liberals (the family of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo), socialists and environmentalists. For a month, the French-speaking liberals of the MR, one of the seven parties in the team, warned against the scenario of a complete exit defended by the Minister of Energy, the Flemish ecologist Tinne Van der Straeten. They called for keeping part of the current nuclear capacities, arguing in particular that the new gas-fired power stations planned to secure the energy supply are too polluting and generate CO2. Nuclear power accounts for around 40% of the electricity produced in Belgium.
In the end, the agreement torn off within the restricted Council of Ministers (the “
kern
” with a representative of each of the seven parties) stipulates that Belgium will invest “
in research on sustainable and CO2-neutral energies
” including in the nuclear energy of the future (SMR, editor's note), reported the French-speaking channel RTBF.
The budget to invest in this type of technology was already planned, according to the government source joined by AFP.
Overall, the compromise obtained retains "
scenario A
" from the Minister of Energy.
"
The agreement confirms the investment mechanism put in place to replace the current nuclear which is obsolete,
" said the same source.
