Energy Minister Doris Leuthard has rejected criticism of government plans to replace nuclear energy with gas and water power as well as energy saving measures.
Leuthard said the cabinet’s energy outlook, presented last Wednesday, was in line with the policy on climate change.
It is crucial to reduce the use of fossil energy and promote renewable resources, she said in an interview in Saturday’s edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper.
Leuthard came out in favour of curbing the rights of environmental groups to block the construction of power stations.
She also said it would wrong to shut down the existing five nuclear power plants before they have reached the end of their lifespan.
Parliament last year approved a government proposal to opt out of nuclear power by 2034.
Switzerland’s energy needs are covered mainly by hydropower (54 per cent) and nuclear energy (40 per cent), according to official data.
All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.
As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.
