Germany is coming after its neighbors' nuclear reactors.

Berlin is getting rid of its own nuclear plants — the last is supposed to shut down by the end of 2022 — and is turning its attention to the danger posed by rickety reactors in Belgium and France.

“Germany has made a decision in favor of a nuclear power exit. It would be desirable if our neighbors would take old plants offline, too,” Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said on May 22.

Berlin’s move is part of a broader push by the EU's anti-nuclear countries, which include Austria and Luxembourg, to squeeze out nuclear power in favor of greener options such as renewables and increased energy efficiency.

EU rules allow each country to set its own energy mix. But domestic pressure and popular worries over the risks of nuclear power in the aftermath of Chernobyl and Fukushima have made anti-nuclear interventionism politically popular.

Germany is focused on Belgium's 43-year-old Doel and Tihange nuclear power plants.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia have both been subjected to fierce pressure from Austria, which tried to block plans to modernize their nuclear power plants. Lithuania is waging a campaign against Belarus’ Ostrovets power plant being built only 15 kilometers from its border. Germany is also unhappy over Switzerland’s search for a nuclear waste disposal site, worried the location may be too close to the frontier.

But Germany's particular ire is focused on Belgium's 43-year-old Doel and Tihange nuclear power plants. Reactors in both were shut down in 2012 when hydrogen bubbles were found in their walls; they were deemed safe and restarted in late 2015. German politicians were also outraged when their working life was extended by a decade to 2025.

The two sides in late 2016 agreed to set up a nuclear commission with experts from both countries, mirroring similar nuclear safety agreements with France, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

Still, nuclear fears linger and the mood wasn't helped by this year's Belgian program of handing out iodine tablets to locals in case of a radioactive leak.

Belgium's reactors have long been the focus of complaints from politicians and NGOs, and public protests in nearby North Rhine-Westphalia — Schulze's home state. “Many people in the greater region of Aachen feel threatened by the aged, and close-to-the-border power plants Tihange and Doel,” she said.

France’s 40-year-old Fessenheim power plant lies on the Rhine River, only about 1 kilometer from Germany, is also a cause of transborder frictions.

No problem here

Belgian politicians and the country's nuclear safety authority reject German concerns.

“We’re feeling safe and German people should feel the same way," said Robrecht Bothuyne, an MP in the Flemish parliament responsible for energy policy for the CD&V party. “We have more reason to be concerned about the coal-fired power plants in Germany than the nuclear power plants in Belgium."

Germany is doing more than talking. In this year's coalition agreement between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the Social Democratic Party, the two sides pledged to halt nuclear fuel shipments to foreign plants with “questionable” safety records — directly targeting reactors in Belgium and France.

"The aim of the German environment ministry is to prevent nuclear fuel elements from German production being used in stations abroad whose safety is questionable from a German perspective," a ministry spokesperson said.

Berlin's friction with its neighbors is raising hopes in other anti-nuclear countries of a new and powerful ally in their anti-atom coalition.

The change in policy is taking some time to trickle down, and ministries are currently looking into the issue. The German export agency this year approved the export of 48 unirradiated nuclear fuel elements to Doel, according to the environment ministry.

The German coalition deal also called for state-owned pension funds to divest from foreign nuclear power assets.

The governing parties also want to spread the anti-nuclear gospel across the Continent. They want to influence EU policy and end “EU support for new nuclear power plants,” as well as working to amend the goals of the 1957 Euratom treaty, regulating nuclear power in the bloc.

The European Commission is expected to propose changes to the agreement by late 2019. An EU official said that options include changing the legal status of the treaty and giving the European Parliament a say, which would open the door to closely scrutinizing any state aid for nuclear power.

Anti-nuclear alliance

Berlin's friction with its neighbors is raising hopes in other anti-nuclear countries of a new and powerful ally in their anti-atom coalition.

“We see it as a chance now to form an alliance with Germany and other partners,” Luxembourg's Environment Minister Carole Dieschbourg said in Brussels in March. Ending nuclear power will also top the agenda of a meeting of German-speaking environment ministers on June 11-12 on the sidelines of a regular EU environment ministers meeting.

The anti-nuclear message has resonance in local communities, and there is no downside for German politicians wanting to take a whack at more pro-nuclear neighbors.

Activists in Aachen staged a demonstration on May 10 when French President Emmanuel Macron received the Charlemagne prize in the city, upset at the French government's stake in Engie, which owns Doel and Tihange through its Belgian subsidiary Electrabel.

"Aachen's population is concerned about the threat to their lives by the nearby ramshackle nuclear power reactors Tihange and Doel, and, in their helplessness, is stocking up on iodine tables even if they don't protect against radioactive contamination," the Stop Tihange activist network said in a public letter to Macron.

The plants' operator, Engie Electrabel, says the reactors meet all safety requirements and are under constant scrutiny.

"We see that some people have some real fears and questions and don’t feel comfortable with the fact that these power plants are running," said Anne-Sophie Huge, a company spokeswoman.

"Two thousand people daily go to work on the site," she said. "Two thousand people who have family, friends, a mother, a father, children — they don’t go to work with fear in their belly."

This article is part of Raw Power, a series on Europe’s clean energy revolution.