Belgium’s inner cabinet approved draft legislation Friday to gradually shut down the country’s seven aging nuclear reactors between 2015 and 2025, making good a pledge the government made when it was elected in 1999.
The legislation — which goes next to parliament for debate — represents a victory for Greens who are key component of Liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt’s ruling coalition.
Drafted by Green Secretary of State for Energy Olivier Deleuze, the bill had failed in its first attempt Tuesday to go through the “kern” — the inner cabinet that includes Verhofstadt and his vice premiers — despite many hours of debate.
The measure faces concerted opposition from industry lobbyists in parliament.
“There is a willingness on the part of the entire government to move toward alternate energy sources, that do not produce waste that have to be watched for centuries,” the premier said, Deleuze at his side.
But the decision left a loophole, in which nuclear power could be retained in the case of “force majeure,” but, said Verhofstadt, that clause would be interpreted in a “very restrictive manner.”
Belgium has two nuclear power stations, one in Dutch-speaking Flanders and the other in francophone Wallonia, with a total of seven reactors tha together supply nearly 60 percent of energy needs of Belgium’s 10 million people and industry.
Environmentalists have welcomed Deleuze’s blueprint to phase out the reactors between 2015 — when the first one will be 40 years old — and 2025. The secretary of state was formerly head of Greenpeace Belgium.
But the Federation of Belgian Enterprises (FEB) has said “there is no scientific or ecological, technical or economic reason” for a decision to be taken now on closing the reactors from 2015.
