The green family lives a difficult future following the agreement reached to extend two nuclear reactors. At Ecolo no one utters the word “defeat”. Yet that is what it is all regarding.
Plan B like Bouchez
Against their will Ecolo and Groen suffered this file and are forced to go where they did not want to go: towards extension, towards plan B, plan B like Bouchez. The president of MR has been on the barricades for months to defend nuclear power. It is his script that triumphs today. He who first argued on the issue of CO2 emissions, then on the issue of security of supply, then prices, then energy independence.
Ecolo tried to counter every argument. But the surge in gas prices has made their speech less and less audible in public opinion. Within the coalition, the Greens were also increasingly isolated. Plan A seemed lost, the question becoming how not to lose face. The war in Ukraine has arrived. Ecolo and Groen found a golden opportunity to limit damage. Not to agree with Georges Louis Bouchez but to respond to the event, to the unforeseen. But finally, not many people are fooled. Accepting the extension, modifying the exit law of 2003 which is their great historic victory, can only be a defeat.
A defeat disguised as victory
Ecolo defends an agreement providing for one billion in renewables and the closure of 5 nuclear reactors out of the 7 in Belgium. Of course Ecolo and Groen are not coming out of this affair entirely naked. Somehow, if we close our eyes and forget the whole sequence, we can even say to ourselves that this is a rather interesting agreement for the greens because they obtain investments in renewables which they would not have obtained with plan A. A little less gas, a lot of renewables and a little nuclear. On paper it is defensible, especially with the youngest voters particularly mobilized on the climate issue and less on the nuclear issue like the first generations of Ecologists.
But finally they must now negotiate with Engie the maintenance of nuclear power, assume despite Russian aggression the construction of two gas-fired power stations and release a few million for the development of small SMR nuclear reactors.
But above all, they must make people forget two years in which they developed kilometers of arguments once morest this renewable nuclear balance. Explain that what didn’t work, what wasn’t sustainable, what wasn’t profitable, what wasn’t possible, what was dangerous is now functional, sustainable, profitable, possible, secure. Environmentalists find themselves arguing once morest themselves, trying to make people forget what they have been saying for years. For the credibility of the word of ECOLO it is a difficult moment.
Reactions from associations
Several environmental associations are attacking the greens. It is not the first time, far from it, that the ecology of government is opposed to the ecology of associations. But here the clash is of another magnitude. Greenpeace denounces “a disaster for the climate, security and the energy bill”. InterEnvironnement evokes “a missed opportunity to rewrite our energy future”. Stop nuclear loose that “The government has chosen both plague and cholera”.
In short, the moment is painful for the greens who must also go to Canossa to negotiate with Engie. Negotiating necessarily means accepting compromises, whether on nuclear income, waste, or dismantling, the file is not closed. The great political risk for Ecolo is that this file drags on and that between now and the elections, they cannot move on.
A risk all the more important as there is no reason for the president of the MR not to cease his guerrilla warfare once morest the greens, since it is obvious that nuclear power is not the real issue for him. The real issue is the French-speaking political leadership, and this requires a total fight of the MR once morest Ecolo.
