The key question was: When will the state of Lower Saxony finally decide on the application for revocation or withdrawal of the planning approval decision, which has been in the hands of the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment for almost two years, and what political action does the state government intend to take towards Berlin?
The Konrad repository was approved in 2002 and, after a number of delays, is scheduled to go into operation in 2027 according to federal plans, almost 40 years after planning began and 25 years after the planning approval decision. Is this justifiable for safety reasons?
The alliance - consisting of the two nature conservation associations, the city of Salzgitter, IG Metall, Landvolk and AG Schacht Konrad - says "No!" and calls for a fundamental reassessment of the project in line with today's safety requirements. The facility does not correspond to the current state of science and technology, nor does it meet the requirements for proving the long-term safety and retrievability of the stored radioactive waste.
In May 2021, the environmental associations BUND and NABU, which have filed a lawsuit, submitted an application to the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment to withdraw or revoke the planning approval decision for the construction of the final storage facility at Schacht Konrad. A decision on the application is still pending. Meanwhile, the expansion of the Konrad mine continues unabated and construction work is underway. The alliance agrees that two years of processing time is enough, despite the duty of care.
Nobody expected a decision yesterday, but it was noted with relief that Minister Meyer has now for the first time specified a time horizon and held out the prospect of making a decision on the application by the end of the year if possible. Mayor Frank Klingebiel summed up on behalf of the Salzgitter against Schacht Konrad alliance: "It is a good signal that the State Environment Minister Christian Meyer has accepted the invitation of the overarching and unique alliance against Schacht Konrad. Unlike his counterpart from Berlin, Steffi Lemke! It was a good and constructive discussion. Even though we as an alliance would have liked the Lower Saxony Environment Minister to make a decision on BUND and NABU's application to withdraw or revoke the planning approval decision from 2002 in May 2023 after almost two years of examination, the Minister has promised a decision before Christmas this year. That is a good thing! But we will also hold him to this. Irrespective of the legal review of the application, the Alliance has called for political action by the state government and the state parliament to demand that the federal government apply the same standards and criteria to the Schacht Konrad repository as a low- and intermediate-level repository as are provided by law for high-level repositories, namely the implementation of a transparent site selection procedure and retrievability. This is a question of justice! It is absurd and unacceptable for the federal government to differentiate here."
