Merkel rejects call for early nuclear shutdown

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Merkel rejects call for early nuclear shutdown
Tue Sep 4, 2007 1:12PM EDT
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected on Tuesday a call from one of her ministers that the country's utility firms shut down their seven oldest nuclear reactors by the end of 2009.

Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat (SPD), said in a newspaper interview over the weekend that such a move would reduce the overall risk from nuclear energy.

"Just because a nuclear plant is older does not mean it is not safe," Merkel, a conservative Christian Democrat (CDU), told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper in an interview.

"All plants have the same security requirements based on the law regulating nuclear power."

Merkel is a supporter of nuclear power, but she is bound by a seven-year-old deal to phase out nuclear energy in Germany by the early 2020s.

Gabriel has seized on recent problems at Vattenfall's Brunsbuettel and Kruemmel sites, saying they highlight safety risks associated with nuclear power.

The nuclear phase-out is one of the most divisive issues in Merkel's "grand coalition" of conservatives and SPD.

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