German U-turn on nuclear energy as oil supply doubts grow

The reconsideration has come in the light of energy scares, most recently the ongoing disruption of oil supplies to Europe's largest economy caused by the dispute between Russia and Belarus.

The socialist-Greens administration of Gerhard Schrder took the decision seven years ago to shut down Germany's nuclear plants under pressure from environmentalists. Now that policy is seen as too narrow and restrictive in an economy heavily reliant on energy imports.

As senior Belarusian officials arrived in Moscow yesterday for crisis talks with Russia regarding the oil row, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, stressed the need for diversifying energy resources.

"We must think about the consequences of shutting down nuclear power plants," Mrs Merkel said on Tuesday in an interview with Germany's public broadcaster, ARD. Insiders at her cabinet say that a public renunciation of the go-green policy may come within weeks.

According to Mrs Merkel the latest incident regarding the transit of Russian oil supplies through Belarus demonstrated "that we need a comprehensive, balanced energy mix in Germany".

Mrs Merkel did not directly criticise Moscow but said Berlin would engage in "intensive discussions" about the energy issue.

Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), have been divided over nuclear power. While conservatives near Mrs Merkel have repeatedly demanded that Germany slash a scheduled nuclear energy phase-out, the SPD remains in favour of the plan to close nuclear power plants.

"Those who use oil shortages in order to propagate nuclear energy are not capable of intellectually comprehending the topic of energy supplies," said Ulrich Kelber, the deputy president of the SPD parliamentary bloc.

Members of the opposition Greens also protested the idea of making changes to the nuclear phase-out.

"With uranium, you can neither heat your homes nor fuel your cars," said Jrgen Trittin, a Greens politician.

But industry wants nuclear power to stay and, in the world's third largest economy, the views of big business carry weight.

Meanwhile, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, intervened last night to try and restart the flow of oil supplies to Europe as his country's energy row with Belarus over the Druzhba "Friendship" pipeline deepened.

Until now, president Putin has distanced himself from the row in the hope it could be solved at official level.

Russia said Belarus had taken oil from the pipeline to secure payment in kind for a transit tariff imposed last week.

Russia had earlier slapped an oil export duty on Belarus to staunch annual losses of up to $4 billion it says it was suffering because Belarus has been refining duty-free oil at a steep profit, in violation of their customs union.

Yesterday, Mr Putin told his government "to discuss with Russian companies the possibility of reducing oil output in connection with the problems arising from transit through Belarus".

RUN-IN OVER UKRAINE GAS

THE latest problems over Russian oil come a year after Moscow cut off Ukraine's natural gas supply during a price dispute. That also led to brief shortages of Russian gas, which is pumped to several European Union nations. That incident led to calls for energy diversification - Russia currently supplies a quarter of the EU's oil and more than two-fifths of its gas.