Nuclear a pawn in Belgian politics via Nuclear World News

16 November 2011

In pursuit of a functioning government Belgium has reversed a 2009 agreement and proposed a crippling tax on nuclear power, leading utilities to threaten court action.

 

GDF Suez reacted strongly to the moves today with the assertion that the last negotiated nuclear agreement with government was binding on both sides. The company said it had kept its side of the bargain and would contest the new coalition’s proposals using “all legal means at its disposal.”

 

It was only in October 2009 that the country added ten years to the schedule of a 2003 ‘phase-out’, giving reactors a nominal lifespan of 50 years – about equal to the engineering and economic lifespan they expect under normal political arrangements. With the revertion to the 2003 timeline, GDF Suez’s subsidiary Electrabel will not be able to relicense two reactors at Doel and another at Tihange to operate beyond 2014 and 2015.

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