Just hours after Germany’s three remaining plants closed and the era of nuclear power was thought to be at an end, Minister-President of Bavaria, Markus Söder has announced plans to reopen the Isar 2 plant under federal state control.
Just before midnight on Sunday, the Isar 2 nuclear power plant, which lies around 80 kilometres from Munich, was shut down. The event marked Germany’s delayed but decided departure from nuclear power. The Neckarwestheim plant in Baden-Württemberg and Emsland in Lower Saxony also closed their doors.
Though the anti-nuclear power movement is widespread in Germany, 50 percent of people said they were in favour of keeping the three remaining plants open. Now the state permier of Bavaria, Markus Söder, is calling for nuclear power to be controlled at a state, rather than federal level in Germany, in which case the Isar 2 plant could be reopened by the government of the federal state.
The centre-right CSU politician told Bild newspaper that Bavaria is "demanding that the federal government give states the responsibility for the continued operation of nuclear power. Until the [energy] crisis ends and while the transition to renewables has not succeeded, we must use every form of energy until the end of the decade. Bavaria is ready to face up to this responsibility”.
The Isar 2 plant is the most powerful in Germany and this shift of power into hands would require amendments to the Atomic Energy Act. Since the CDU / CSU were run out of federal office in September 2021, and the plan to phase out nuclear power in Germany was committed to the coalition agreement, Söder’s demands are unlikely to met while Scholz’s government stays in office.
In his comments to Bild, Söder accused the German Green party, one-third of Scholz’s coalition government, of putting the German economy at risk by so heavily supporting the closures of the Isar 2, Neckarwestheim and Emsland plants.
The Greens are “harming climate protection, our economy and endangering our prosperity”, said Söder to the tabloid paper. Meanwhile, in Berlin, climate activists gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday night to celebrate the plant closures.
Despite the Bavarian plant closing, its 450 employees are set to receive fixed work contracts until 2029. Until then staff are still required to monitor and control the site.
Thumb image credit: Clare Louise Jackson / Shutterstock.com