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Nuclear power plant Isar 2 in Lower Bavaria
Photo: Lennart Preiss/Getty Images
nuclear power?
Yes No Maybe!
Because gas will probably be scarce in winter, Germany is threatened with an energy crisis.
Time is short, but the traffic light coalition is deeply divided over the question of whether gaps should also be filled with nuclear power.
"The Greens must understand that all parties in the coalition have a responsibility for the whole country and not for their own party when it comes to energy security," FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai told SPIEGEL.
"Our position is clear: we probably need to extend the service life of the three remaining nuclear power plants until 2024."
Background: Djir-Sarai's liberals had recently pushed ahead in the nuclear power plant debate - and are pushing for the continued operation of the remaining three nuclear power plants, which are supposed to be shut down in Germany at the end of the year.
Party leader Christian Lindner even brought an extension of the term "if necessary" until 2024 into play.
For the Greens and also for many Social Democrats, this is like breaking a taboo.
At best, they would probably bring themselves to postpone the nuclear phase-out for a short time, a so-called stretching operation over a few months and without the use of new fuel rods.
FDP General Secretary Djir-Sarai considers this to be a mistake.
"The stretching operation doesn't solve a single problem, that's window dressing," he said.
He is counting on Minister of Economics Habeck making a decision that does justice to political responsibility.
After all, the energy companies need planning security, for example for the purchase of new fuel elements.
At the same time, however, he also declared: "No one in the FDP wants to go back to nuclear energy permanently, we concluded the debate a long time ago."
In Habeck's Ministry of Economics, the option of extending the term is currently being examined.
The fact that the FDP is already going on the offensive in this way is also causing resentment in the SPD.
It was "not serious to demand continued operation of the nuclear power plants" before the result of the stress test is available, said the SPD parliamentary group vice and environmental politician Matthias Miersch.
As so often, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is reluctant to position himself.
A runtime extension could "make sense," said Scholz on Wednesday when he visited the Siemens gas turbine planned for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline in Mülheim.
Miersch himself thinks little of the continued operation of the German nuclear power plants.
"Nuclear power is a very expensive antique that is in no way sustainable," he says.
»It is absurd to see the solution to our problems in the energy sector in extending the operating life of three nuclear power plants.«
Further tensions in the coalition could soon emerge as soon as the second stress test for the German electricity supply is presented.
The results are scheduled to be published in August.
A first test in the spring showed that the supply in Germany is secure. In mid-July, the Ministry of Economics issued a second, tougher test to the four German transmission system operators.
cte/kev/sev
