North Rhine-Westphalia state premier’s call for early shutdown of Belgian nuclear reactor rejected

Armin Laschet, state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), has unsuccessfully called for the early shutdown of two nuclear reactors near the Belgian-German border in a meeting with Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel, reports Moritz Küpper for Deutschlandfunk. The NRW state government is concerned about the safety of the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 reactors, but the Belgian government sticks to its plans to phase out nuclear power by 2025, said Laschet after the meeting. “Belgium’s position is that ‘the climate goals are what’s important for us, and so we need this nuclear energy for a while’. Energy prices are lower in Belgium than in Germany, and this is seen as a competitive advantage. So we need good arguments when we push for an accelerated exit […] in the future,” said Laschet. As supply security and prices are important to the Belgians, the European single market must enable the necessary amounts of power to be imported, also by expanding the grid, he said.

Read the article in German here.

For background on Germany’s nuclear exit, see the CLEW dossier The challenges of Germany‘s nuclear phase-out.