Nuclear dispute: green draw red line

The Greens themselves had positioned themselves beforehand, definitively, the tone was set. On Friday, the delegates in Bonn approved the temporary continued operation of the two southern German nuclear power plants Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim until mid-April 2023 as an operational reserve to stabilize the power grid. Actually “an impertinence” for the party, as Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke finds. But if these power plants could make “even a small contribution” to securing the energy supply in winter, “then we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to it,” Lemke continued.

No buying new fuel rods

Further use of the third Emsland nuclear power plant still connected to the grid after December 31, 2022 was expressly excluded. Even the operational reserve for Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim was controversial at the party congress, but was accepted by the majority.

The Greens also do not want an extension beyond April 15. “A return to nuclear power: That will not happen with us,” promised Economics Minister Habeck. Party leader Ricarda Lang had previously categorically ruled out the purchase of new fuel rods for nuclear power plants. The background is that only the purchase of new fuel rods would enable the nuclear power plants to continue operating beyond the spring.

But while the Greens should finally be over in mid-April, the Liberals have not given up in recent weeks to urge the Greens to continue operating for a longer period of time. FDP boss Lindner had already blocked Habeck’s proposal twice in the cabinet in order to push through further demands from the Liberals. This now also includes restarting nuclear power plants that have already been shut down. So far, the Atomic Energy Act provides for the end of nuclear power in Germany at the end of 2022.

>> Read also: The Greens are freeing themselves from their ideological corset

Jan Philipp Albrecht, head of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is close to the Greens, rejected accusations that the Greens were the “brakes on the nation”. In fact, the opposite is the case, Albrecht told the Handelsblatt.

“The narrative of many Greens critics that the party is endangering energy security with its reserved attitude towards nuclear power is nonsensical and populist,” continued Albrecht.

The Greens would have done the right thing by agreeing to extending the operation of the two nuclear reactors in the south: “Continued operation beyond spring 2023 would be of little help for the energy supply, it would be expensive and it would be backward-looking. Rather, the government must do everything possible to promote the expansion of renewable energies.”

Lots of conflicting issues

The nuclear issue was not the only contentious issue at the party congress. The Greens had imagined many things differently after taking over government last December. Now they have to make decisions that constantly mean compromises and unreasonable demands. Deliveries of arms, the reactivation of coal-fired power plants, the construction of liquid gas terminals. And yet the base pulls along, also at this federal party conference.

For the first time in three years, the Greens met again at a party conference where the delegates were in full force. Buoyed by the good state election results in Lower Saxony, which will probably bring the Greens further participation in the government, they appeared self-confident, even if they recently lost some support. In the Sunday trend, which the opinion research institute Insa collects weekly for “Bild am Sonntag”, the Greens fall behind the SPD this week and come to 18 percent. That is one percentage point less than in the previous week.

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Politically difficult weeks lie behind the party. There was anger about the originally planned gas levy, which Federal Economics Minister Habeck first had to defend and then collect again.

Another problem for the party is the German government’s recent decision not to supply ammunition to Saudi Arabia. After all, the Greens have been demanding a ban on arms exports to crisis and war regions for years. Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock defended in Bonn that the approval was a consequence of old contracts in European armaments projects.

As with nuclear power, the Greens found a compromise. Accordingly, the delegates rejected arms exports to Saudi Arabia, but did not demand the withdrawal of the export license. The Greens also agreed on further arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The delegates also voted for motions that will not go down well with the traffic light coalition, especially with the FDP. The party congress decided on 100 billion euros for additional climate protection investments – without answering how such a demand could be implemented in view of the already high burdens on the budget and the insistence of the coalition partner FDP on the debt brake. A wealth tax to deal with the crisis is also to come – which will also hardly be feasible with the FDP.

Sharp debate on Lützerath

The Greens held a sharp, agitated debate on climate policy on Sunday. “We have not only made helpful decisions for climate protection,” admitted Federal Environment Minister Lemke, alluding to the coal deal between the green-led economics ministries in the federal government and in North Rhine-Westphalia and the energy company RWE.

The planned phase-out of coal in North Rhine-Westphalia by 2030 is playing into the hands of the Greens, but at the same time the climate movement is accusing them of betraying the Paris climate protection agreement because, in view of the energy crisis, two lignite-fired power plants in the North Rhine-Westphalia region are to run longer than previously planned. The village of Lützerath, a symbol of the climate protection movement, is to be demolished in order to mine coal.

“Lützerath has to stay,” demanded the Green Karl-Wilhelm Koch, who regularly puts his finger in the wound at party conferences.

The climate activist Luisa Neubauer, herself a party member, made serious accusations against the Greens in her speech on Sunday afternoon.

She also questioned the figures underlying the coal agreement. The deal could not keep the climate promises that the federal government had given itself. The amount of coal that RWE can now burn according to the agreement is about four times larger than the amount that would still be combustible under the Paris climate agreement. It is up to the Greens to draw the ecological boundaries, said Neubauer. There is not another day to waste, not another legislature.

>> Read also: RWE prefers coal phase-out eight years – Two power plants stay on the grid longer

North Rhine-Westphalia’s environment minister, Oliver Krischer, urged the delegates to think carefully about their decision: “If you vote now to keep Lützerath, then there will be no exit from coal in 2030. Then we’ll be back to 2038.” Ultimately, the party leadership sat down here too by: The push against the agreement to phase out coal in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2030 narrowly failed.

More: “Green ideology accepts bankruptcies” – family entrepreneurs demonstrate before the party congress.