Reuters
Germany's coalition government agreed to ban fracking
for shale gas indefinitely on Tuesday, after years of fractious talks over the
issue, but environmental groups said the ban did not go far enough and vowed to
fight the deal.
Test
drilling will be allowed but only with the permission of the respective state
government, officials said.
German
industry is keen to keep the door open to fracking - which involves blasting
chemicals and water into rocks to release trapped gas - arguing it could help
lower energy costs, but opposition is strong in the country, where a powerful
green lobby has warned about possible risks to drinking water.
Germany was on the verge of a parliamentary vote on
similar legislation to ban fracking a year ago, but the effort stalled amid
disagreements between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian
Democrats (CDU) and the left Social Democrats (SPD).
The
two parties agreed on Tuesday to an indefinite ban, but the compromise
legislation calls for the German parliament to reassess whether the decision is
still valid in 2021, said Thomas Oppermann, who heads the SPD's parliamentary
group.
CDU officials
confirmed that a compromise had been reached.
Friends of the Earth
Germany (BUND) criticized the proposal and said that by setting a date for a
fresh look, the coalition had essentially agreed to allow fracking in five
years.
"The
coalition's agreement on a fracking permission law is hair-raising. The law
must be stopped and replaced with a true fracking ban," Hubert Weiger, who
heads the environmental group, said in a statement.
Both
parties were due to debate the legislative proposal in caucus meetings on
Tuesday.
Further
details of the compromise legislation were not immediately available.
Current
German law permits unconventional fracking, but virtually no drilling permits
have been approved.
(Reporting
by Holger Hansen and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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