“Nuclear fuel tax law incompatible with basic law and invalid”

German nuclear utilities E.ON, RWE and EnBW can hope for the repayment of about 6 billion euros after the Federal Constitutional Court declared the nuclear fuel tax law invalid and incompatible with basic law, reports Reuters. The federal government did not have the legislative authority to introduce the tax in the way it did, said the court in its decision. It declared the law invalid with retroactive effect. A court in the city of Hamburg will now deal with the question of repayments, writes Reuters. The tax, introduced in 2011, is payable by nuclear power station operators whenever they use new fuel elements in their reactors.

Read the court press release in German here and the Reuters article in German here.

For background read the CLEW dossier The challenges of Germany’s nuclear phase-out.