Environment Minister Steffi Lemke faces serious allegations. A nuclear expert accuses the Green politician of not listening to his nuclear expertise.
The Greens are currently the focus of nuclear policy. The party is resisting an extension of the term of the three reactors still connected to the network. Now, Environment Minister Lemke is said to have ignored important experts in the debate, according to the accusation of physicist and nuclear expert Ulrich Waas.
As a former member of the Reactor Safety Commission (RSK), Waas is a specialist. The nuclear expert now raises a serious allegation against Lemke to the “Bild” newspaper: “Apparently Steffi Lemke is worried that the RSK could consider continued operation to be unproblematic.”
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The Ministry of the Environment dismisses the accusation and said to “Bild”: “An advisory assignment to the RSK was not necessary.” Criticism is now coming from their own government. FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr says: “The RSK is the central body when it comes to the safety of our nuclear power plants.” He demands that Lemke should still obtain the expertise of the nuclear experts.
The ministry had recently continued to be convinced of the nuclear power plant exit: “At this point in time, we are assuming that Germany will phase out nuclear power.” The reason: the requirements for continued operation would be very high, safety issues would be decisive. This assessment is said to have been substantiated in an audit report from the beginning of March. In it, Lemke’s employees and Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) consider continued operation of the three nuclear power plants to be impossible for several reasons.
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In the meantime, the federal government does not want to be forced into making a hasty decision in the heated debate about extending the lifespan of nuclear power plants. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) first wanted to wait for the results of a second stress test on the security of the power supply, a government spokeswoman said recently.