According to this, it was possible – as demanded by grunen and the SPD – to come to an exploration and construction stop in the salt dome, which has been the only option for a nuclear waste repository in germany for 35 years. Even a preliminary safety analysis costing several million euros could be stopped. This should actually fall a kind of suitability prognosis.
Accordingly, gorleben was only a backup option. The salt dome was not a reference site against which the other sites were measured. Rather, the site had to be treated like all the others and had to face the same comparative criteria that had yet to be defined. At each stage of the process, it was then examined whether gorleben was as good as the other options or whether it fell through the cracks. Should gorleben remain in the race to the end, at least one more site would have to be explored intensively underground – like the salt dome in wendland.
The federal government, the federal states and the leaders of the SPD and the greens, who are taking part for the first time, came to an agreement at a summit meeting on tuesday evening, particularly on the controversial issue of gorleben. According to federal environment minister norbert rottgen (CDU), only one more meeting is needed to agree on a law for a new search for a final storage site.
However, SPD chairman sigmar gabriel warned on wednesday against too much optimism. Important questions have not yet been sufficiently discussed, he told the german press agency. "The headline about the meeting was: in the evening the lazy get busy. After years of blocking a solution to the repository issue, the union now wants it to happen quickly."
The SPD is prepared to reach a consensus before the summer recess. "The most important ambiguity that still needs to be cleared up is the question: is this mr. Rottgen’s private event, or are the heads of the coalition and the chancellor behind it as well??"Participants of the meeting criticized gabriel for only taking two hours of his time. They indirectly accused him of not wanting a success because of the NRW election campaign, where environment minister rottgen is the CDU’s top candidate.
It remains to be seen how a constitutionally watertight law can be drafted. If a new federal institute for final disposal, which continued to be criticized by the SPD and the greens, was to make important decisions, this could lead to lawsuits, because the citizens could not be sufficiently involved in the decision-making process.
Red-grun therefore demands close involvement of parliament in all relevant decisions. Therefore, it is possible that there will first be a preliminary examination by the justice and interior ministries of the question of whether the planned complicated construct of who gets what responsibility in the search is constitutionally legitimate. The date for the possible final meeting is not yet available, participants expect an open-ended session. Finally, there was a top-level meeting with chancellor angela merkel (CDU).
Environmental groups and anti-nuclear groups from wendland criticized the plan, saying a complete exclusion of gorleben was necessary. "So far, despite all the unctuous words, the draft law is the continuation of the old one-way street gorleben by other means," said greenpeace nuclear expert matthias edler.