Germany’s Green Party has abandoned its goal of immediate closure for all the nation’s nuclear power plants, agreeing to a compromise deal under which Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats plan to phase out the nation’s 19 nuclear reactors by 2018. The Greens’ decision came at the urging of its most influential member, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who argues that the Greens need to be more realistic in order to remain a part of the coalition government with the Social Democrats. Fischer: “We cannot be pure Green in government.” But many Greens are angry about the compromises the party has made to be part of the governing coalition.
