Swedish Ruling Party Calls for Cancelling Anti-Nuclear Laws

PRESS RELEASE

Swedish Ruling Party Calls for Cancelling Anti-Nuclear Laws

Jan. 12, 2008 (EIRNS)—A debate on renewing Sweden's aging nuclear reactors has broken out within the four-party ruling coalition. The People's Party, the largest party in the coalition is pushing for building four new nuclear reactors. Two other coalition members, Moderate and Christian Democratic Parties say that they are open for discussion, but the Center Party is against it.

The People's Party wants to rescind the law against new nuclear power plants and the party's leader Jan Björklund went out yesterday stating "it is time that Sweden, just like many other countries have done, revise its positions on nuclear energy."

Moderates are positive towards nuclear energy and could consider expanding it. Party Secretary Per Schlingmann stated, "we think that nuclear energy plays a very important role in “energy mixing".

Commenting on the fact that the previously anti-nuclear Chrisitan Democrats' Environment and Transportation Committee decided last year it did not want to exclude the possibility of a new reactor being built after 2010, party leader Göran Hägglund said, "It would be stupid to exclude the possibility of new nuclear reactors in Sweden to the end of time."

Nonetheless the Center Party, while not calling for the old reactors to be dismantled is against expanding nuclear energy, although Party Secretary Anders Flanking had said, "We believe that we can not get stuck into being dependent on nuclear power and oil."

Sweden has a law that not only bans the construction of new nuclear power plants, but even bans university teaching of nuclear power engineering. Sweden had one of the most advanced nuclear engineering sectors in Europe, which has been severely eroded since the Greenie ideology has taken hold. The People's Party move is the most recent development in a growing debate throughout the country on renewing the nuclear industry in Sweden.

In Germany, Economic Minister Peter Glos called for infrastructure investments as part of a "conjunctural plan," writes Spiegel Online. "The core element should be tax relief for low- and middle-income [taxpayers], flanked by a billions-scale state investment program. Thus, the state development bank KfW could make funds available for housing construction, and something should be done also for infrastructure."