Scholz tells junior coalition partner nuclear power a 'dead horse'

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he does not feel provoked by the demand from his junior coalition partners in the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) for a halt to the dismantling of nuclear power plants and considers the issue settled.

In the "Interview of the Week" on public radio Deutschlandfunk, he rejected the idea that the demand was a provocation targeting him personally just a few days after an agreement within the Cabinet to work more quietly.

"Nuclear power is finished. It is no longer used in Germany. The phase-out has been done by law. The issue of nuclear power is a dead horse in Germany," he continued. "I don't need to put my foot down at all."

The FDP has made its move against the background of the continuing high cost of electricity, which is a burden on the economy and especially on energy-intensive industry.

The parliamentary group of Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens are therefore calling for a state-subsidized electricity price for industry: The FDP is against it, and Scholz has so far been sceptical.

On Deutschlandfunk, the chancellor demanded a financing proposal for this: it "must of course be part of any discussion if you put billions somewhere, where you take them away," he said.

"We must ensure that Germany has structurally cheap energy production. We are doing that with the expansion of renewable energies, even at a pace that was not the case before.

"We are also doing that, by the way, with the development of a hydrogen grid, where the necessary decisions will be made this year and early next year," the chancellor further explained.

Germany shut down its last nuclear power stations earlier this year. The decision to phase out nuclear power was made by then chancellor Angela Merkel after the disaster at the Fukushima plant in Japan in 2011.