According to Groen chairman Meyrem Almaci, the agreement reached within the government on nuclear energy means that there is a ’99 percent’ chance that a decision will be made in March to close the nuclear power plants permanently. Extending the lifespan ‘is not a plan B, but a plan Z’.
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That is what Almaci says in a conversation with The morning on Radio 1. She thus responds to the comments of MR chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez, who emphasized immediately after the agreement that there was no question of a nuclear exit.
But according to Almaci, that discussion is no longer worth a debate: it is too late to decide whether to keep existing nuclear reactors viable for longer. ‘One can only determine that the patient has died,’ she says. Operator Engie-Electrabel has also indicated for some time that an extension is no longer technically possible. “I only know of one claim of a resurrection in history,” she says.
The supply must be ensured by the construction of a gas-fired power station in Vilvoorde. ‘If we see on March 18 that the permit is not in order, we will move on to the next candidate in the auction. Then perhaps there could be a power station in Seraing or Manage.’ Still not closing the existing nuclear power stations is therefore ‘not plan B, but plan Z’.
Almaci still sneezes at the MR: according to her, why alternatives still need to be discussed is because the previous government did not make any decisions. She also subtly points out that the MR then supplied both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy.
Yet she is not surprised by Bouchez’s statement. “You always make compromises,” she says, and it’s normal for everyone to try to explain them in their own way. “But yesterday we took a clear option.”
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