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German Greens urged to back nuclear deal



German Greens urged to back nuclear deal

MUENSTER, Germany, June 23 (Reuters) - Leading German Greens urged a 
party congress on Friday to back a government deal with industry to 
gradually phase out nuclear power, saying it should be seen as a 
triumph for the ecologists. 

Approval in a vote scheduled for late in the day is by no means 
certain because some in the party want a faster pullout than the one 
agreed last week. A 'no' vote could spark a crisis in the government 
coalition uniting the Greens and their senior partner, Chancellor 
Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats. 

``I know the compromise hits the pain barrier for many in our ranks. 
Nevertheless, this agreement was not reached easily,'' outgoing 
Greens co-leader Gunda Roestel told the conference. 

``Almost 50 percent of our citizens see this as a Green success and 
it would be ridiculous if we destroyed this success ourselves,'' she 
said to applause from the delegates. 

Party manager Reinhard Buetikofer said he expected enough delegates 
to back the deal and reject other counter-motions due to be put 
before the conference by Greens who want the party to stick to an 
original demand for an quicker end to nuclear power. 

``We will have three hours of arguing and then the majority will vote 
in favour,'' Buetikofer told Reuters before the meeting of some 750 
regional delegates in the western city of Muenster. 

The deal foresees a maximum life of 32 years for each of Germany's 19 
nuclear plants, meaning the last would close down in the mid-2020s. 
The Greens went into the talks demanding a near-immediate shutdown 
but ended up reluctantly proposing a 30-year operational life span 
for the plants. 

Some Greens were also alarmed that the accord did not fix a firm date 
for the final shutdown and left open the possibility that future 
governments could reverse some of its provisions. 

WARNINGS FROM SENIOR PARTY MEMBERS 

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, the most prominent Greens 
politician, even suggested the fate of the party, which has seen a 
steady decline in support in recent years, hung on the vote. 

``The Greens won't die. If the party congress comes to sensible 
decisions -- and that applies to nuclear withdrawal and the new 
leadership vote -- then we have a great opportunity to turn the wheel 
round,'' Fischer told Bild newspaper. 

The Greens emerged from the 1960s and 1970s peace movement to win 6.7 
percent of the national vote in 1998. 

But the party has lost ground in a series of local elections and 
opinion polls show the resurgent liberal Free Democrats have 
overtaken the Greens as Germany's third political force. 

``We are no longer the party that automatically represents the 
interests of young people. The time of the 1968 generation, for whom 
the Greens represented a funny, cheeky and provocative rejection of 
the establishment, is over,'' Roestel said. 

The congress is due to elect successors to Roestel and her co-chair, 
Antje Radcke of the party's radical wing, and appoint members of a 
new party council that many hope will be a powerful policy-forming 
unit. 

Fischer, a controversial figure among the ecologists, will run on 
Saturday for a seat on the party council, the first time he has 
tested his personal popularity among colleagues in this way. 

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