Files from Robert Habeck’s Ministry of Economics caused some clear reactions on Thursday. A traffic light politician is “disappointed”.
Did employees in the Federal Ministry of Economics withhold information – and thereby even deceive their boss Robert Habeck? This is suggested by files on the nuclear phase-out from 2022 and 2023, which the magazine “Cicero” has sued for. According to “Cicero”, the files give the impression that assessments at the technical level within the Ministry of the Environment and Economic Affairs were changed in such a way that continued operation of the reactors for a longer period appeared to be impossible – even though experts had declared it possible from a safety perspective.
Habeck and Environment Minister Steffi Lemke want to testify before Bundestag committees on Friday. According to consistent media reports, the original version of the expert note was not available to Habeck, but only to his former State Secretary Patrick Graichen. His ministry rejects the allegations as truncated and without context, but people see it differently, especially in the Union.
“Put above the welfare of the country”
Among other things, the parliamentary managing director of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei, threatened on Thursday at An old suspicion is confirmed: “Parliament and the population were lied to when nuclear power was phased out.”
CDU politician Jens Spahn takes a similar stance. He writes at
Economy: “Very worrying”
There is also criticism of Habeck from his own traffic light coalition. The Hamburg FDP MP Michael Kruse wrote to X on Thursday that he was disappointed in Habeck. Germany was “knowingly misled” when it came to phasing out nuclear power.
Economist Veronika Grimm, who advises the federal government, told Focus that it would be “very worrying” if the expertise did not actually get through to Habeck: “How is he supposed to weigh things up if important information doesn’t reach him at all?”
Habeck had proposed reserve operation in the summer of 2022
In 2022, in view of the energy crisis, the traffic light government decided after a long debate to shut down the last three nuclear power plants in mid-April 2023. This means that operations have been extended by a few months compared to the previously set shutdown date of the end of 2022. This was preceded by a dispute between the Greens and the FDP, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz defused by supporting the shutdown – but with this transition period. The opposition Union had criticized the decision.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs emphasized that Habeck himself initially suggested keeping the nuclear power plants in reserve in the summer of 2022. Ultimately, after weighing up the arguments, stretch operation was chosen until April 2023. The energy supply is secure and electricity prices have fallen after the shutdown.
Steffi Lemke’s Environment Ministry, which is responsible for reactor safety, pointed out that the Union and FDP had decided to phase out nuclear power by the end of 2022. However, the two ministries for economics and the environment, led by the Greens, had examined a longer term: “Within the framework of a clear legal situation, this examination was carried out carefully and exclusively in a fact-oriented manner – of course, important safety issues had to be taken into account by the nuclear regulator,” explained the Environment Ministry.
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