Utility RWE AG (RWE.XE) said Wednesday it has filed a lawsuit against the German government over its nuclear fuel tax, starting what is expected to be a series of claims against the government's levy and recent atomic energy policy shift.
Utility RWE AG (RWE.XE) said Wednesday it has filed a lawsuit against
the German government over its nuclear fuel tax, starting what is expected to
be a series of claims against the government's levy and recent atomic energy
policy shift.
A spokesman for RWE's power generation unit--RWE Power--said the company has
filed the case at the tax court in
Munich
.
RWE and Germany's other three nuclear power plant operators have repeatedly
said they consider the tax out of tune with European Union regulations, and
have threatened to take the government to court.
The company has said that it expects the tax to cost it between EUR300 million
and EUR400 million in 2011.
Competitor E.ON AG (EOAN.XE) has said it will sue over the tax.
The RWE Power spokesman said the company's legal complaint is related to the
recent change of fuel rods at its reactor Gundremmingen B. The levy is payable
upon fuel rod exchanges as it taxes the consumption of nuclear fuel in the
power generation process.
The nuclear fuel tax was introduced at the beginning of 2011. Officially the
government has labeled the levy--which was initially expected to generate
proceeds for the state of EUR2.3 billion per year--as part of an austerity
package.
But market observers have linked the nuclear tax directly to the extension of
reactor operating lives, which was announced by the government at the same
time.
Utilities' criticism of the tax increased when the government made a U-turn on
its previous nuclear energy policy--reversing the reactor lifetime extensions
and accelerating the planned atomic energy exit--after the accidents in
Japan
's
Fukushima Daiichi power plant in March.
But the fuel rod tax remains in place, to utilities' annoyance.
The utilities have also that they would seek compensation worth billions of
euros for the sooner-than-expected nuclear energy exit.
Legal experts said the nuclear exit law, as drafted by the government, violates
the constitution, because it injures the proprietary rights of reactor
operators.
Part of the argument centers on the government's decision to fix the shut-down
dates for the individual reactors. The dates are set too soon for the utilities
to exhaust all the power production quotas their reactors have previously been
granted, the utilities have said.
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