Federal constitutional court of Germany – nuclear phase-out – legal or not? – Süddeutsche.de

Eon, RWE and Vattenfall by the shutdown of their nuclear power plants expropriated. They demand a compensation in the millions – but you get to court.

It is a really thick judgment is so much you can predict. More than 130 pages to include the decision to phase out nuclear power, which is to announce the Federal constitutional court on Tuesday, and this Text is basically just the short version. The internal vote, drafted by the Rapporteur Michael Eichberger, i.e., the lead judge, should be more than 1000 pages long.

Now, one might say: It also has to do with a lot of money! The three action of the energy provider, Eon, RWE and Vattenfall would call a success, probably a two-digit billion sums. The real reason for imposing the page number is not the money, but the right is, but The thing is legally challenging. And it could be that the constitutional court enters into legal territory.

the subject of the constitutional complaints of the hectic nuclear phaseout of 2011. After the reactor accident in Fukushima, seven older Nuclear power plants were shut down immediately, the reactor in Krümmel was at the time already from the network. For the rest of the locations fixed switch-off specified dates. In the year 2022, the project of nuclear power in Germany is to be to the end.

expropriation light

Karlsruhe examines the question of whether the public interest in Fukushima is more important than the property rights of the power companies. To high billion compensation it will not come. By Wolfgang Janisch more …

nuclear phase-out as a possible expropriation of the companies

The hearing of the First Senate was an event filled with the armies of managers, lawyers, and professors in the hall. Ground arguments, challenging discussions – but in the end the two days of March on two concepts: democracy and ownership.

The basic democratic theory of the method, represented by the Federal government, is this: The legislature is free, at any time from the high-risk technology of nuclear power. “Fukushima has also made in Germany, a revaluation is necessary,” said Federal environment Minister Barbara Hendricks (SPD) in the negotiation. Although Eon CEO Johannes Teyssen commented that the accident had not changed the risk, but only the perception of the Risk. But also, the corporations are accepted, what is in the jurisprudence of the Federal constitutional court since the Kalkar-decision of 1978, is clear: The policy is the assessment of whether the dangers of nuclear power are unacceptable, a large game room – the “residual risk” is, therefore, a political size.

Who has to pay the bill, the turning, is not answered yet. The billion action depends on the second Central concept of the method, the property of the corporations, by the sudden departure from nuclear electricity may have “expropriated”? Or something like that? You can require money for your useless that has become investments? Or they simply had the misfortune to have the wrong horse?

So ran the trial, should the judge, the nuclear phase-out hardly a classic expropriation of trust – which would in any case have to pay compensation. But they will probably lead the Terminus of the “content and regulation” of property. The principle familiar to everyone: The home owner must not arbitrarily throw out a tenant, or the rent increase – the landlord and tenant law sets the property barriers. There is no compensation.