Lawmakers in Germany said that an EU agreement for a $25 billion state subsidy by the UK to build a nuclear power station is illegal and should be annulled, in another twist in Europe’s nuclear energy farce.
The German Bundestag’s Economic and Energy Committee took evidence on the European Commission’s approval of $25 billion worth of state aid for the construction of a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, southwest England. The hearing followed recent claims by German energy cooperative Greenpeace Energy that the EU state aid approval contravenes competition rules.
In October 2014, the European Commission approved the state aid for the construction of Hinkley Point C, which allows the UK government to assure the future operator a fixed electricity price over a period of 35 years and to guarantee inflation surcharges and credit guarantees.
The German Government had informed the European Commission that “political expectations” made it clear that the promotion of renewable energy should not lead to the encouragement of nuclear power plants, according to, the Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, Brigitte Zypries.
A political coalition of Alliance 90 and the Greens called for a stop to “subsidies for British nuclear power plant Hinkley Point C and legal action.”
In January, the Austrian government confirmed it is to take the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over the subsidy deal.
New Nuclear in Meltdown Fears
The Hinkley Point C proposal has already been beset by many years of delay – mostly because the reactor it is considering using has been plagued with problems. EDF has chosen the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), a third generation pressurised water reactor (PWR) design. It has been designed and developed mainly by Framatome (now Areva), EDF in France and Siemens in Germany.