Final Word from Tuesday, April 15, 2025
The coalition agreement in Germany between CDU/CSU and SPD, which still needs final approval, says nothing about a return to nuclear power. There's a sentence about fusion ("Our goal is for the world's first fusion reactor to be located in Germany"), but that's more in the realm of political pipe dreams meant to soften the blow. Remember, CDU/CSU had played up the return to nuclear power hard before the elections. Their New Energy Agenda on Nov. 5 had said that the two parties were assessing whether it would be financially and technically feasible to reopen the last German nuclear plants that were closed. They were still talking about it earlier this month, but then SPD squashed any thought of it. Bavarian PM Markus Söder saw the writing on the wall and did his own one-way deal for Czech energy with PM Petr Fiala in Dec. Many Czechs will now ask whether the firewall around AfD, a big supporter of nuclear power, is such a good idea if it means higher electricity prices in the CR. [ Czech Republic Christian Democrats Social cordon sanitaire ]
Glossary of difficult words
pipe dream - an unattainable or fanciful hope or scheme;
to play up - to make something seem more important or better than it really is, esp. to get an advantage;
feasible - possible and practical to do easily or conveniently;
to squash - to firmly reject (an idea or suggestion);
to see/read the writing on the wall - to sense that something bad will happen;
firewall - (politics) refusal of one or more political parties to cooperate with another political party.