Germany holds firm in nuclear waste rift

  • 21/01/1999

German tensions with France and Britain over Bonn's ban on nuclear-waste treatment continued to escalate. Clinging to a position that has already sharply irritated London and Paris, the German Environment Minister, Juergen Trittin, told Parliament he would refuse to compensate nuclear waste reprocessing plants in France and Britain. They stand to lose billions of dollars in business under the phased withdrawal from nuclear energy undertaken by the new leftist German government.