Belgian MPs vote to abandon nuclear power by 2025

Brief

December 11, 2002

Belgian's House of Representatives approved draft legislation to phase out the country's seven nuclear power plants in the 2015-2025 time frame. The legislation, part of the governmental agreement that brought the "rainbow" coalition (liberal-socialist-environmentalist) to power in July 1999, calls for "nuclear power plants to be dismantled once they are forty years old." The first plants are to be shut down beginning in February 2015, the last in 2025. The draft bill, which allows for "appropriate measures" if energy supply is threatened, is expected to be approved by the Senate in the coming weeks.