Germany is a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), being one of the 44 listed countries needed to sign and ratify for the CTBT to enter into force.

Germany is a member of NATO and participates actively in the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance. There are an estimated 150 free-fall gravity bombs based at the US Air force Base of Ramstein and the German Bundeswehr base at Buechel. The Buechel bombs would, in the case of a nuclear attack, be delivered to their targets by German pilots in German Tornado planes. Groups in Germany launched a 3 year campaign last summer to end nuclear sharing and for the withdrawal of all US nuclear weapons from German territory by the year 2010 as their contribution to a nuclear weapon free world. For more information in German, please visit the website www.atomwaffenfrei.de.

Germany has 17 nuclear reactors in operation and has shut down 19. The latest reactor to close was at Obrigheim in May 2005 and is the second unit to close under the terms of a 2001 nuclear agreement.

In June 2001, the government and four main utilities finally signed a phase-out plan, the main points of which are:

• A fixed quantity of electricity can be produced in each reactor. This equates to an operating life of around 35 years, although "the operating life" of a reactor can be transferred between reactors.
• A ban on the construction of nuclear power or reprocessing plants.
• A ban on shipment of commercial nuclear fuel to reprocessing plants after July 2005.

The German nuclear sector has closed or abandoned a series of other facilities including:

• The Wackersdorf reprocessing plant (1989)
• The Kalkar Fast Breeder Reactors (1991)
• The High Temperature experimental reactor
• The Hanau Mox Facility (early 1990s)
• All reactors in operation or under construction in Eastern Europe (1999/2000)

Germany's nuclear utilities appear to be ganging up against the German nuclear phase-out law. In January 2007 a report by Deutsche Bank warned that Germany will miss its carbon dioxide emission targets by a wide margin, face higher electricity prices, suffer more blackouts and dramatically increase its dependence on gas imports from Russia as a result of its nuclear phase-out policy, if it is followed through.

In March 2007 RWE Group was reported to be planning to sue the Government after it was refused permission to transfer the right to generate kilowatt-hours from the closed Muelheim-Kaerlich PWR to extend the lifetime of its Biblis-A PWR beyond 2008. Utilities want to extend the lifetimes of all 17 reactors initially to 40 years (from average 32 years) and then individually seeking extensions to 60 years as in the USA. They are particularly anxious to extend the life of reactors due to close soon beyond the anticipated date of the next federal election, expected in late 2009, in the hope that a government willing to scrap the nuclear phase-out is elected.

Read the profile on Germany from the Model Nuclear Inventory (pdf), produced by the Reaching Critical Will project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.