The creation of a safe, economical and non-polluting energy supply is at the heart of Green politics. That fact is at the roots of the very foundation of the Green Party: The struggle against nuclear power sparked the movement of "citizens initiatives" in West Germany at the end of the '70s, and led to the foundation of the party Die Grünen – the Greens.
The nuclear reactor catastrophe at Chernobyl is therefore a crucial date, too, for us Greens as a party: Previously, many people in Germany had seen the opponents of nuclear power as nutcases who wanted to deny everyone in society their creature comforts. "Without nuclear power, the lights will go out in Germany" – that was a slogan of the "opponents of the opponents". That changed on 26 April 1986. The melt-down sensitized a broad majority in the societies of western Europe to the uncontrollable risks of nuclear power.
