Germany Committee of Inquiry looks into German nuclear phase-out
In Germany, a parliamentary committee of inquiry will look into the nuclear phase-out in 2023. The Bundestag approved the establishment of such a committee on Thursday.
04.07.2024, 16:40
SDA
The Christian Democrat MPs themselves and the right-wing populist AfD voted in favor of the corresponding motion by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the afternoon. The motion therefore received the approval of at least a quarter of the members of the German Bundestag required to set up a committee of inquiry.
The committee can therefore convene for its constituent meeting as planned. Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) will open the first session, which will be open to the public, in the evening.
Accusations against Habeck and Lemke
The CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag had requested the committee of inquiry to take a closer look at allegations in connection with the decisions on the continued operation of German nuclear power plants. The focus is on whether the two Green federal ministers Robert Habeck (Climate) and Steffi Lemke (Environment) made the decision on flimsy grounds. The opposition accuses them of not having examined the continued operation of nuclear power plants in an "open-ended" and "unbiased" manner.
It is about nothing less than the question of "whether the public was deceived in the decision to shut down the last three nuclear power plants", CSU member of parliament and energy politician Andreas Lenz told the German Press Agency.
His parliamentary group will demand the necessary transparency in the investigation and clarify responsibility for the processes surrounding the nuclear phase-out. Lenz is one of the future committee members.
Following the reactor disaster in Fukushima in 2011, Germany decided to finally phase out nuclear power. Eight of the 17 nuclear power plants at the time were shut down immediately, while a phased plan applied to the remaining nine. The last three - Isar II, Emsland and Neckarwestheim II - should have been shut down on December 31, 2022 according to the Atomic Energy Act.
Due to the energy crisis caused by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) decided to keep the reactors running for three and a half months longer until mid-April 2023. The Christian Democrats, as well as the Liberals, who are part of the government, wanted the plants to run for much longer.
The committee of inquiry that has now been approved is the second committee of its kind in this parliamentary term, alongside the committee on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
Committees of inquiry are regarded as the "sharpest sword of the opposition". At least a quarter of all members of the Bundestag must agree in order for them to be set up. With 195 out of a total of 733 members of the Bundestag, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group would have met the requirement even without the support of the AfD members.
