Greens attacked over nuclear row

Nuclear trains bring problems for the Greens

The resumption of shipments of reprocessed nuclear fuel from France to Germany has focussed German press attention on the paradoxical position of the Greens, in particular Greens Environment Minister Juergen Trittin.

The Frankfurter Rundschau accuses the Greens, now the junior party in the coalition government, of a chronic inability to reconcile ideology with practical politics.

The play that is once again being enacted is a national tragedy

Sueddeutsche Zeitung

This resulted in wearying disputes betwen "turbo-pragmatists" and "politically moribund fundamentalist dinosaurs".

"They failed to learn that as an opponent of nuclear power you can, for example, accept the Castor nuclear transports and also publicly defend them.

"The result: Anyone who has not grown old alongside the Greens and their contradictions can hardly understand them at all."

As the nuclear shipments move again after four years, "the play that is once again being enacted is a national tragedy", says the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

"People are saying that the justification for the protests... is disappointment with the Red-Green government's renunciation of nuclear power, perceived as too hesitant."

Fear of violence

The paper attacks the "great naivety" of those who assumed Germany could dump nuclear reprocessing overnight.

"Germany is not the only nation in Europe which wishes to bid goodbye to nuclear power... but it is the only one in which there is a justified fear that the peaceful demonstrations against nuclear power can descend into violence."

Berlin's Tageszeitung says German protesters opposed to the transport of nuclear waste from France are wrong to blame the Greens.

Minister Trittin is under fire

The paper argues that the right time for criticism would have been when the Greens negotiated the gradual phasing out of nuclear power in Germany over a period of 20 years.

It says the demonstrations are too late and warns the Greens leadership they should take seriously the rank and file's wish for an early exit from nuclear power.

"They should at least give voice", it adds, "to what the movement, their core voters and the Green rank and file want."

The Berliner Morgenpost sees Environment Minister Trittin as Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's handy "bogeyman" on the nuclear transport issue.

The chancellor tolerates the escapades of the minister, as long as he is doing his dirty work

Berliner Morgenpost

As an opponent of nuclear power who is in charge of reactor safety, Mr Trittin is now accused of treachery by his own party.

"He plays this bogeyman role brilliantly," it says. "He is being used for the role. When the transports... have arrived at Gorleben, Trittin's services will no longer be needed."

"The chancellor tolerates the escapades of the minister, as long as he is doing his dirty work," the paper says.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.