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Adding to the above ^:

Exit from nuclear power: Internal papers put Robert Habeck's ministry in a difficult position to explain

According to a media report, experts from the German Energy Ministry are said to have spoken out early in favor of extending the operating life of the nuclear power plants. But the information apparently did not reach the Green politician.

Senior employees of the German federal government apparently ignored and suppressed concerns from their own experts in the spring of 2022 in order not to jeopardize the politically desired and planned exit from nuclear energy. This is evident from internal memos and correspondence between ministry employees, which the magazine "Cicero" reports on in its new issue.

Central to the affair is the role of Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, whose department is also responsible for energy. In spring 2022, the management of his ministry commissioned a specialist department in the house to examine the extent to which a three-month extension of the operating life of nuclear power plants could help to secure the country's energy supply.

Because Germany's gas supply was in danger because of Russia's attack on Ukraine, the ministry's experts came to a clear vote. Ultimately, it is unclear whether sufficient natural gas can be stored for next winter to enable gas-fired power plants to operate in addition to consumption in industry and for heat supply, the "Cicero" quotes from the note. "An extension of the operating life of the nuclear power plants until March 31 can help to defuse this situation," the ministry employees wrote.

Continuing to operate the reactors could also help to reduce the high electricity prices. The ministry officials referred to the so-called merit order principle. This is a mechanism whereby the price formation on the major energy exchanges is always based on the most recently connected, most expensive power plant on the market. "This could cause electricity prices to fall in many hours," Cicero quotes from the ministry's memo.

The Green politician Habeck is said to have not received the assessment of his own experts. At management level, it was only available to his then state secretary and party colleague Patrick Graichen, the ministry told Cicero upon request. Graichen, for his part, had to vacate his office a year later, in May 2023, following allegations of nepotism.

But Graichen is said to have not only withheld important information from his minister, but also provided him with false facts. This is what "Cicero" reports on the basis of its access to the files, which was only granted to the magazine after a lawsuit that lasted two years.

In March 2022, Graichen, together with his counterpart in the Federal Environment Ministry, Stefan Tidow, also run by the Greens, wrote his own additional memo on "examining the continued operation of nuclear power plants due to the war in Ukraine". The result: After "weighing up the benefits and risks", an extension of the operating period is not recommended.

Although Tidow's employees identified serious legal errors in the document and demanded corrections, this did not stop Graichen from forwarding his memo (uncorrected) to Minister Habeck. The Green politician subsequently used the document for his official communication, and it was also published in a revised form on the ministry's website.

The ministerial officials from the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of the Environment were ultimately unable to prevent a three-month extension of the operating period with their maneuvers - Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave binding instructions for the so-called stretch operation in October. In April 2023, however, the last three remaining German nuclear power plants were taken off the grid.

And this was probably due to false assumptions and misleading facts, as the "Cicero" research now shows. The publication is therefore causing displeasure among the liberal coalition partner. "The Habeck papers show that Germany was knowingly led astray when it came to phasing out nuclear power," said Michael Kruse, energy policy spokesman for the FDP in the Bundestag, on Thursday. "I am disappointed in Robert Habeck because the citizens of this country and his coalition partners were kept from the truth."

The opposition even sees the events as a reason for the Green politician to resign. "Robert Habeck deceived the country when it came to shutting down the nuclear power plant. Either he lied or he doesn't have his own energy ministry under control," said CSU Secretary General Martin Huber to "Focus Online." A minister whose department, against his better judgment, causes such great damage to the German economy and energy supply is no longer acceptable.

https://www.nzz.ch/international/so-...kst-ld.1827925

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Immediately after the shutdown, there was already evidence, over one hundred documents, that the internal motto in the ministry was that any supposedly open-ended examination of the nuclear issue must necessarily lead to the desired result of rejecting a nuclear extension. This was also reported at the time, albeit only briefly, before the government exerted massive pressure to prevent further reporting. I posted about it back then. I therefore consider the current claim that Habeck was deceived by his own people to be completely implausible. In addition, he has personally installed the ideological clique from which this action stems in the ministry, more than doubling the ministry's staff for that and recruiting from his close social circle. These are leading names in the international anti-capitalism movement and avowed friends of the destruction of the market economy.

It is also remarkable that the two main German news programs "Heute" and "Tagesschau" on the two state propaganda channels ARD and ZDF did not mention this criminal, conspiratorial scandal, which is of the most serious, destructive significance for Germany, with not a single word.