100,000 protest against government nuclear policy in Berlin

[Hannah Bell]

A total of 100,000 people demonstrated in the centre of Berlin last Saturday against the energy policy of the German government. Held under the slogan, “Nuclear power: Stop now!”, attendance at the protest was twice the size expected by the organisers.

The previous Social Democratic Party-Green Party government (1998-2205) had agreed that energy companies could continue to run their existing nuclear power plants for an additional 10 years before being required to close them down. In a recent decision, the current coalition government of conservative parties and the free market Free Democratic Party has bowed down to the demands made by the energy lobby and agreed to extend running times for nuclear plants by an extra period of between 8 and 14 years. The new concept is to be finally decided at the end of the month by the cabinet and adopted in October by the Bundestag.

The deal awards additional billions in profits to the country’s four big energy companies, which, for their part, are merely being asked to contribute to a miserly tax towards the disposal of radioactive waste. In a secret agreement, the government also assured the energy concerns that they would not be burdened financially for any additional safety precautions.

A broad range of social layers took part in Saturday’s demonstration. Large numbers of young people demonstrated alongside veterans of the country’s anti-AKW (nuclear protest) movement, which goes back to the 1980s. Whole families, consisting of three generations, took part, and participants encircled the central government administration area in Berlin, blowing whistles and banging drums and rattles.



“I would also like to buy a law”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/demo-s23.shtml