Germany’s Merkel denies misleading public over nuclear dump

Source: Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday denied she had lied to the public about the suitability of a permanent location for the country’s central nuclear waste dump when she was environment minister in the 1990s.

In a rare five-hour appearance before a parliamentary inquiry, Merkel rebutted allegations that the then government had put political considerations before scientific findings when it decided to focus the search for a waste dump only in Gorleben in northern Germany.

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Specifically, they say that Merkel distorted the results of a scientific study by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources that reported it was worthwhile to explore other sites for a permanent storage site.

Ute Vogt, SPD committee leader, said Merkel had misled the public about the results of the study by saying it considered Gorleben, in a sparsely populated northern region far away from conservative voter strength in southern Germany, to be the most appropriate location when it in fact did not say that at all.

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The parliamentary inquiry was launched in 2010 and has already become one of the most expensive investigations in German history.

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Read more: http://www.euronews.com/newswires/1672102-germanys-merkel-denies-misleading-public-over-nuclear-dump/