JAGERMAN REACTION:GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel's ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) are in disarray as the reactor drama in Japan has called into question the party's pro-nuclear energy consensus.
Dr Merkel’s hopes of calming jangled German nerves were dashed yesterday when party allies questioned the wisdom of her plan to shut down ageing plants while the opposition accused her of breaching the constitution.
On Tuesday the German leader announced a three-month shutdown of seven plants in operation since before 1980, to allow investigation of security issues.
Rather than calm matters, the German leader’s unusually swift response appears to have stoked up concerns about Japan – Germans are already panic-buying iodine tablets and Geiger counters – and left her party in disarray.
While Dr Merkel is still a staunch defender of nuclear energy, environment minister Norbert Röttgen has broken rank to tell this morning's Sternmagazine that "if it were up to me, we would get out of nuclear energy faster than agreed".
The Japanese drama has not just revived slumbering fears about nuclear energy, it has prompted a new round of Germany’s long-running tug-of-war over nuclear power that could yet decide this year’s most important election – in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg on March 27th.
Last autumn the CDU reversed a decade-old agreement by the Green Party, then in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), to shut down Germany’s last nuclear plant by 2020. Now many in the CDU feel trapped and want to reverse that own reversal after just six months. Most exposed to public anger and fear are CDU politicians facing re-election in a series of state elections starting this weekend in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Already Germany’s energy companies are preparing a legal challenge to the move, as is Bundestag president Norbert Lammert, a senior CDU figure.
“I have asked for a review to see if further legal considerations are necessary,” said Mr Lammert yesterday.
Legal uncertainty could delay the implementation of the moratorium and rob Dr Merkel of the political initiative she had hoped to seize.
The opposition Social Democrats (SPD) see themselves in a win-win situation, describing Tuesday’s moratorium as an unconstitutional attempt to set aside parliamentary decisions. When the German leader rejected that accusation and defended her right to impose the three-month moratorium, SPD politicians accused her of political sleight of hand and described the moratorium as an attempt to keep the nuclear issue off the agenda until after state elections.