BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The Bundestag committees for climate protection and energy as well as for the environment will meet this Friday for special sessions on the decisions before the German nuclear phase-out. The reason for this is a report by the magazine "Cicero", according to which internal concerns about the nuclear phase-out planned for the following turn of the year were allegedly suppressed in both the Ministry of Economics and the Ministry of the Environment in 2022 - which both ministries deny. The CDU/CSU parliamentary group requested the meetings.

Anja Weisgerber (CSU), environmental policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Berlin: "When technical arguments are sacrificed to the party line, this not only leads to seriously wrong decisions, but also undermines trust in politics and the administration as a whole. The political influence on the compilation of the facts that formed the basis for the final decision must now be fully investigated."

Energy policy spokesperson Andreas Jung (CDU) demanded clarification from Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens). "He must answer questions in person and put all documents on the table." There are accusations that the public and parliament have been deliberately misled "by distorting the facts". "The minister must fully explain what he knew about this and what role he himself played in it. He bears political responsibility for all events in his office."

"Cicero" bases its reporting on the subject on internal correspondence between the two ministries. A journalist from the magazine had successfully sued for the release of the documents, which had previously been kept under lock and key.

On April 15, 2023, Germany finally completed its nuclear phase-out and shut down its last three nuclear power plants. The power plants should have originally been taken off the grid at the turn of the year before, but their operation had been extended to secure the power supply. The Greens had long resisted such a move, but ultimately supported the concept presented by Habeck and the nuclear power plant operators in September 2022 of a temporary operational reserve for two of the last three German nuclear power plants. The FDP was generally in favor of a longer service life. In October 2022, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) then put his foot down for the continued operation of all three nuclear power plants until spring /hrz/DP/zb