Merkel Retreats on Nuclear-Power Extension in Bid for State Election Boost
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Michele Tantussi/Bloomberg
German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photographer: Michele Tantussi/Bloomberg
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is backtracking on nuclear power as the atomic emergency in Japan roils state-election campaigns.
Merkel’s decision yesterday to halt seven of Germany’s 17 reactors includes two in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where her Christian Democratic Union party is battling to retain a half-century hold on the state in a March 27 vote. Polls indicate a neck-and-neck race between the local CDU-led coalition and opposition parties including the anti-nuclear Greens.
“The events in Japan spell trouble” for Merkel, Oscar Gabriel, a political scientist at the University of Stuttgart, said in a phone interview. “Voters identify competence on nuclear safety with the Greens, not the CDU. So the Greens may well gain points among the voters.”
Baden-Wuerttemberg, home to companies such as Daimler AG (DAI), Porsche SE and SAP AG, is the most populous of seven German states holding votes this year and has been under CDU control uninterruptedly since the state’s founding after World War II. Losing it risks undermining Merkel’s authority as chancellor and would widen the opposition majority in parliament’s upper house, where states are represented. Her party had its worst postwar result in the first election of 2011, in Hamburg on Feb. 20.
EnBW Plants
Underscoring the CDU’s challenge, the state government in Stuttgart agreed to buy Electricite de France SA’s 45 percent stake in EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (EBK), Germany’s third- largest utility, for 4.7 billion euros ($6.6 billion) last year. EnBW operates the four nuclear power plants in the state.
Shares in E.ON AG (EOAN), Germany’s biggest utility and the one with the most nuclear generating capacity, rose 2.8 percent to 21.85 euros at 10 a.m. Berlin time, paring an 8 percent decline over the previous two days.
Merkel’s nuclear-power predicament came just after scoring a victory in Brussels, winning support from key allies for a retooled plan to fight the euro-region debt crisis and a commitment to enact budget rules into law.
She campaigned in 2009 promising to extend the use of nuclear power, upending a phase-out enacted under her Social Democrat predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, that would have seen all reactors close by about 2022. Last year, Merkel pushed through a law extending the running time of nuclear plants by an average of 12 years, so that the last plant is slated to close in 2035, according to the Environment Ministry. Germany gets 23 percent of its power from nuclear plants.
Stefan Mappus, the Baden-Wuerttemberg premier and a Merkel ally, backed the extension, which is opposed by 80 percent nationwide, according to an Infratest poll for ARD television released yesterday.
Safety Review
Merkel has delivered the strongest European response to the aftermath of Japan’s worst earthquake. Yesterday’s suspension came a day after she put the extended use of nuclear power on hold for three months for a safety review.
Balancing the requirements of Europe’s largest economy and public opposition to nuclear power has been a challenge for Merkel. Fifty-three percent of Germans want the nation’s nuclear plants closed “as soon as possible,” the Infratest survey showed.
Politics in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a state on the French and Swiss borders that has Germany’s lowest jobless rate, was shifting toward the Greens even before the nuclear crisis.
Station Protests
Plans for a new Stuttgart train station sparked protests last year, helping give the environmental party a boost. Two days ago, anti-nuclear protesters in Stuttgart mixed with the traditional Monday demonstration against the rail project. Opponents of nuclear power also picketed outside Merkel’s Chancellery in Berlin.
Merkel’s CDU have 38-42 percent support and their Free Democratic Party coalition partner 5-8 percent, according to the five polls released so far this month. The opposition Social Democrats have 22-26 percent and the Greens 19-21 percent. All of the polls were taken before the atomic emergency in Japan.
Merkel may have misread Germans’ shock about events in Japan as pressure to change her nuclear policy, said Manfred Guellner, head of the Berlin-based Forsa polling firm.
“Focusing on what’s happening in Germany only helps the Greens, not the CDU,” he said in a phone interview. “A chancellor has to show leadership, not do an abrupt about- face.”
Mappus, the Baden-Wuerttemberg leader, backed Merkel’s nuclear-power moratorium after meeting with the chancellor in Berlin yesterday.
“Everyone realizes that last weekend was something of a watershed,” he told reporters. “It’s right that we inspect aging power plants while they’re off, so we can demonstrate the maximum commitment to safety.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.net; Brian Parkin in Berlin at bparkin@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
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