The exploration mine in Gorleben in Lower Saxony will be closed for good.

"The Gorleben repository chapter will be closed from today," announced State Secretary in the Federal Environment Ministry Jochen Flasbarth on Friday in Gorleben.

The ministry of Svenja Schulze (SPD) has decided to commission the Federal Agency for Final Storage (BGE) with the decommissioning of the mine.

A three-digit million sum is estimated for the work.

Financing is to come from the federal repository fund.

Reinhard Bingener

Political correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hanover.

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The Gorleben site had already withdrawn from the search for a repository last September.

In the interim report submitted by the BGE at the time, the salt dome there was no longer listed as a possible storage site for the highly radioactive waste in Germany for geological reasons.

Previously, there had been bitter arguments for decades about the planned shipment of highly radioactive nuclear waste to Gorleben, which had been planned since 1977.

A broad protest movement has formed against the plans in Wendland.

"As of today there is no more back door," said Lower Saxony's Environment Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) on Friday in Gorleben and spoke of an "extremely important sign for an entire region". The decision to shut down meant the "positive end to a struggle that was rightly waged here against a wrong political decision," said Lies. State Secretary Flasbarth said that the interim report of the BGE "has scientifically proven that there are many geologically more suitable locations." come. The BGE is currently preparing the investigation of these locations, 60 of which are salt domes.

With a view to the politically controversial selection process, BGE President Wolfram König said: “The Gorleben chapter is history - the task of the repository question remains. The last chapter of the exit from high-risk technology still has to be written together. "