De Wever calls on De Croo to take drastic action in the core file: “We are prepared for a change majority” | Inland

The French energy company Engie – which operates the nuclear power stations in our country through Electrabel – last week asked Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open Vld) in a letter that our country would invest in the extension of the latest nuclear reactors and the bill for the dismantling of the nuclear reactors. other nuclear power plants.

Since last spring, De Croo has been negotiating with Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten (Green) with Engie about the conditions for the extension of Doel 4 and Tihange 3. In March, the government decided to keep them open for ten years longer. N-VA (which is federally in the opposition) criticized the House on Thursday and found that delays are taking too long. As a result, the government has virtually no room for maneuver in the talks with Engie. And the bill will end up with the citizen, it sounded.

Bart De Wever was not surprised by the demand from the French energy producer, he tells VTM NIEUWS. “You saw that coming from afar,” he responds. “If you can only extend those nuclear power plants for ten years, the yield is very doubtful. Elsewhere in the world, nuclear power plants are being used for much longer. In the United States sometimes even up to ninety years. So you have to renew them for twenty years. Only then is there a return. Otherwise, Engie will ask for butter with the fish.”

De Wever is in favor of the participation of our government. “At the time, I argued against the sale of the energy sector to France. That also happened by purple-green, under Verhofstadt. It was a privatization in the Belgian way: selling a Belgian public company to a French public company. And we’ve been the cash cow of Paris ever since. I would love to escape that.”

“I would like to participate in that participation and get the nuclear power stations back into my own hands. But then you have to renew in a realistic time frame and then you have to negotiate to succeed. And Tinne Van der Straeten negotiates to fail. That’s finger pointing. She needs to get rid of the file as soon as possible.”

De Wever dismisses the fact that she does not negotiate alone: ​​“Van der Straeten is a competent minister. I have the impression that De Croo is letting go. In the summer of 2020, when we were still negotiating, everyone said we had to extend the nuclear power plants and that it was urgent. Two years later, nothing has happened.”

De Croo must completely take over the file, De Wever says. “This is our last chance. Otherwise we will lose those nuclear power stations. With all possible consequences for our supplies, the price for the consumer and the climate. The Greens are obsessed with dirty, expensive gas plants for some reason. And Van der Straeten is not telling the truth. It will take more than she says. She is also counting on imports from France, which will not be there. She really needs to get rid of the file.”

The N-VA chairman believes that De Croo should, if necessary, expel the Greens from the government. “We are immediately prepared to supply a change majority,” said De Wever. “We don’t ask for anything in return. I want to approve that tomorrow.”

In the program ‘C’est pas tous les jours dimanches’ on RTL-TVi, Ecolo MP Samuel Cogolati denied that the Greens would want to make the negotiations fail. “We want to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion,” said Cogolati. He referred to the agreement approved by the Vivaldi parties in mid-March, which contains agreements on security of supply. “But there can also be no question of a blank check to Engie-Electrabel and the Belgian taxpayer should not have to pay for the radioactive waste.”

Former Energy Minister Marie Christine Marghem (MR) is concerned about the success of the negotiations. For example, the MR politician referred to the leaking of Engie’s letter. According to Marghem, her party also supports the principle of “the polluter pays”, but Marghem does not rule out a government participation in the two power stations, a participation that, according to her, “does not exclude the company from being taxed” nor that the government participates. can “take advantage of the excess profits in this period of high prices”.