Merkel’s murky deals with nuclear lobby now arousing German opposition

Opposition, both within her government and elsewhere, is on the rise……the cloak-and-dagger approach would only spark suspicions among the public that the government had reached a secret agreement benefiting the power companies.

Coalition Fission – Merkel’s Nuclear Plan Encounter Mounting Opposition :Free Internet Press, 13 Sept 10 Chancellor Angela Merkel had hoped that with a quick resolution, she could sidestep a national debate over nuclear energy. Many, though, see her new plan as a windfall for the country’s power utilities.

Opposition, both within her government and elsewhere, is on the rise. This article was written by German news magazine Spiegel’s staff journalists.It could be just like the good old days. This Saturday, thousands of anti-nuclear energy protesters, traveling on buses and chartered trains from all over Germany, plan to converge on Berlin. They’ll be handing out flyers and holding up signs and banners, and making as much noise as possible. The city’s residents may even see a handful of old VW buses plastered with old red-and-yellow “Nuclear power? No thanks!” stickers leftover from the 1970s, the heyday of atomic protests…..
Merkel had hoped that reaching a speedy decision on the nuclear issue two weekends ago would quickly resolve an unpopular issue. But she may, once again, have miscalculated. Indeed, it appears that the government’s compromise will spark an even more strident debate.

Governors from Merkel’s Christian Democrats and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), are already demanding corrections to the new policy, the European Commission is threatening to require a review that could take months, and environmental experts from the CDU/CSU and from Merkel’s junior coalition partners, the Free Democrats, are unhappy with the new policy, which they say has made too many concessions to the nuclear industry………….
damning was the coalition government’s decision to keep the agreement under wraps because the negotiators were still ironing out the details. “It was stupid,” says one member of the government, noting that the cloak-and-dagger approach would only spark suspicions among the public that the government had reached a secret agreement benefiting the power companies.

‘A Wonderful Day’

It turns out that those suspicions were not unwarranted. Coalition Fission – Merkel’s Nuclear Plan Encounter Mounting Opposition :: Free Internet Press, 13 Sept 10The agreement Merkel reached with the utility executives last week includes substantial concessions to the industry…….

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