Stretch or extend?
What looks like quibbles has a serious background.
Strictly speaking, an "extended operation" of the three still active German nuclear power plants is an extension of the service life, but it only lasts for a short time, then the oven is technically off.
A "true" lifetime extension means that old fuel rods are replaced by new ones.
Greens and SPD make the difference bigger than it is because they have to fear that the veterans of the anti-nuclear movement will go on the barricades if the second "stress test" turns out differently than the first, i.e. for continued operation.
As a precaution, the language rule applies: stretching operation in an emergency, extension of the running time under no circumstances.
Cherry picking in Europe
In view of the EU efforts to alleviate the gas emergency through a community of solidarity, however, it is adventurous how this stretching operation is now justified by the green side: France is the problem!
The heat prevents the nuclear power plants there from being cooled.
Germany must rush to help and export electricity.
This is how Katrin Göring-Eckardt explained it on Sunday evening on ARD.
The Ministry of Economics also said that the situation had to be reassessed because of France.
The truth is: the cooling problems are of little consequence, but safety problems in several French nuclear power plants, which occur at times of routine maintenance in numerous other nuclear power plants, are.
Germany should be thankful that France keeps its nuclear power plants running because it regularly taps into France's nuclear power, especially in winter, when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.
The first “stress test” in the spring should have known all of this to a large extent.
What has changed since then: Germany cannot demand solidarity in the EU in the event of gas and electricity shortages if it is cherry-picking itself – or, like the Greens, only ever finds faults in others.