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Belgium’s nuclear feud threatens to split ruling coalition

by editor

Another government crisis looms in Belgium — this time over nuclear power.

The government is set to decide next month whether to go ahead with a plan to shut down all nuclear reactors by 2025 or prolong the lifespan of the two newest reactors.

But the seven-party coalition is deeply divided on the issue, with some warning the government could implode if the fight escalates.

It’s also a make-or-break moment for the Greens, who are in charge of the energy file and in government for the first time since 2003.

Tinne Van der Straeten, the Green energy minister, is calling on the government to move ahead with its plan to shut down Belgium’s remaining reactors — a position that’s in line with the party’s anti-nuclear agenda and that she has defended as consistent with the country’s long-term climate goals.

But her suggestion to build new gas-fired plants to replace part of the nuclear capacity before relying fully on renewables isn’t going down well with other parties, especially as natural gas prices soar across Europe.

Depending on gas to fill the gap left by nuclear — which last year provided almost 40 percent of Belgium’s electricity production — would make Belgium “dependent on countries like Russia, dependent on a market where we have seen that prices can change significantly,” said Georges-Louis Bouchez, leader of the French liberal MR party, which is part of the coalition.

Asked whether the French liberals are willing to risk the coalition’s collapse over the issue, Bouchez said: “We have the choice between a bad solution and a very bad solution. And to be very clear with you, I am ready to go very, very far in this matter.” 

Some have dismissed the liberal’s comments as bluster, saying Bouchez is pandering to voters in Wallonia and has nothing to gain from breaking up the coalition.

But the fight risks weakening the already fragile coalition led by Flemish liberal Alexander De Croo, in which the French-speaking and Flemish-speaking Greens and liberals represent four of the seven parties.

It also highlights a dilemma faced by a number of European countries, some of which are increasingly unsure whether they should pursue planned phaseouts of nuclear plants and asking whether the benefits of low-carbon nuclear power outweigh the risks.

‘A new argument’

Technically and legally, everything is in place for Belgium’s phaseout to go ahead: The European Commission has given its green light to the capacity mechanism that will ensure Belgium’s electricity supply as it phases out nuclear power and there is market interest to operate the gas plants.

Meanwhile, utility company Engie Electrabel has warned that it’s too late to backtrack and keep two power plants open past 2025. The company is already “fully focused on this dismantling,” said spokesperson Olivier Desclée.

The government’s conditions to phase out nuclear power, such as guaranteeing the country’s energy supply, are also on track to be met, said Carl Devos, a professor in political science at Ghent University.

But he warned that the mood has changed since these were agreed. The devastating floods that tore through parts of Belgium and Germany over the summer have made the prospect of building new gas plants to replace nuclear capacity — even in the short term — increasingly unpalatable and difficult to defend politically.

Climate change has given opponents of ending nuclear “a new argument,” Devos said.

The Greens’ insistence on pushing ahead with the nuclear phaseout “reflects an old [line of] thinking in the green movement,” said Suzana Carp, an independent adviser working on the EU’s Emissions Trading System, referring to the anti-nuclear protests that fueled Green parties across Europe during the Cold War. “However, when we are in a climate emergency, you can’t use the old argument of why we have to phase out of nuclear to justify building up new polluting technologies.”

Times have changed, said Bouchez. “In 2021, the problem is no longer nuclear security. It remains a problem, but the biggest problem is CO2.” 

“If for the Greens, increasing CO2 emissions is a political victory, good for them, but they will have to explain it to the young people who are demonstrating,” he added.

Between a rock and a hard place

Belgium’s Green energy minister insists the decision on how fast to push ahead with the nuclear shutdown is “not an ideological one” about the future of nuclear “but a technical one.”

“The Belgian nuclear power plants are outdated. Five of them will shut down either way. This discussion is only about temporarily prolonging two of them,” Van der Straeten said.

The party has argued that the EU’s Emissions Trading System — which puts a price on CO2 emissions that industries can emit and allocates a capped number of available permits — will keep emissions in check.

“At the European level, CO2 emissions aren’t increasing because they’re regulated through the Emissions Trading System,” the energy minister told Belgian newspaper De Morgen in July. “In Belgium, we’ll move toward a temporary increase in CO2 in 2026, but we’ll have caught up with two-thirds of that by 2030.”

The alternative, she said, is to “be stuck with nuclear waste 200,000 to 300,000 years.” The choice is a “no-brainer,” she added.

Van der Straeten has also argued that shuttering the country’s remaining nuclear plants will help boost investment in renewables and provide clarity on the country’s climate policies: Belgium decided to phase out nuclear back in 2003, and “after 18 years, 10 different governments and six energy ministers we now need assurances for investors based on facts,” she said.

NGOs working on decarbonization don’t agree with that approach.

“To meet national, European and global climate goals, not some but all emissions need to be reduced by 2050,” said Ana Šerdoner, policy manager at industrial decarbonization NGO Bellona Europa. “Belgium also has national climate goals that it won’t meet unless all emissions in the country are reduced to zero. Building a very large, new gas power plant … will just kick the problem down the road.”

The decision has put the Greens in an impossible position, said Devos.

“If they don’t land this symbolic file, people will start asking what their role is in their coalition. But if they do, they will face criticism of rising emissions and rising energy prices, whether it’s justified or not.”

America Hernandez contributed reporting.

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