It may be an annual ritual, as described in several accounts, but this year's protest movement in northern Germany against the deposit of nuclear waste from the south of the country has been the most bitter, the most expensive and has required the greatest deployment of police since the last world war. It would be foolish of the German authorities or international onlookers to overlook the lessons involved.
They include a mood change against relying on nuclear power and a steadily-increased awareness of the long-term costs of the industry across many generations. The protests in Germany have involved an impressive range of social movements, classes and generations. They have included farmers, professional people and industrial workers in Lower Saxony, together with sympathetic local politicians, as well as the mobile environmental activists who have been willing to provoke action from the massed ranks of police, many of whom were deployed reluctantly and unwillingly.
This movement has successfully focussed on issues - nuclear waste dumping and nuclear power and a range of people who could feed in significantly to next year's parliamentary elections in Germany. It has been noteworthy that prominent Social Democrat politicians in Lower Saxony have raised their voices against the traffic in nuclear waste from southern lander such as Bavaria and Baden-Wurtemburg and over the cost of deploying such large police forces against the protestors. They say the waste should be kept in situ and not sent elsewhere.
With Social Democrats currently in power in the majority of Germany's lander and hoping to improve their position in the national and regional elections, it is not surprising that such voices should be heard. This is partly a tribute to the growing strength of the Green party, with which Social Democrats hope to share power at federal or lander levels. But it is wider than that - a tribute to the national salience of environmental issues in Germany in all levels of society and polity, which became very visible over the BSE issue.
It looks as if nuclear power itself will be put much more under the political microscope during next year's elections. Already Sweden's Social Democrat government has taken a decision to honour pledges that nuclear power will eventually be phased out. These concerns have been stimulated in part by worries over the safety of nuclear power plants in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; but the issue of waste disposal and reprocessing is now becoming much more active. This is welcome news for those in Ireland who have campaigned about the dangers of nuclear reprocessing and waste disposal at Sellafield. They have become more aware in recent years that it will take a big swing in international opinion to prepare the ground for decisions to phase out the nuclear power which is at the basis of their protests.