Around 250 interested parties, representatives of state actors in the site selection procedure, local authorities, the Repository Search Forum Planning Team, organised civil society and the general public were present when the individuals and institutions that had submitted comments during the consultation presented their statements. Subsequently, BASE outlined how it had dealt with the statements and held a discussion with the event participants.

The consultation process

Following the initial publication of the participation concept in September 2024, all interested parties were invited to express questions, suggestions and criticism regarding the concept until 8 December 2024. BASE received 17 written statements (including two motions from the 3rd Repository Search Forum), which BASE recorded, evaluated and took into account in the revision of the concept, distinguishing between individual comments and further remarks from several events on the participation concept.

The revised version of the concept, as well as the tabular overview containing all comments and answers and all information regarding the consultation process, can be found here.

Key content of the event 

First, BASE outlined the consultation process and provided an overview of the statements and comments received. (The complete presentation including the slides shown by BASE and the respondents can be found here). Subsequently, the respondents were given the floor and presented the key points from their written statements in the form of highlights. Of the total of 15 respondents, nine gave a presentation and another respondent contributed to the discussion.

High level of detail and expertise

The concluding discussion, which was largely led by the respondents, was very diverse and characterised by a high level of detail and expertise. Many discussants reaffirmed the concern described in many statements, namely to define the transition between informal and formal participation in the site selection procedure in more detail. BASE pointed out that the revised participation concept already contained somewhat more detailed information on this than the consultation draft, but that the details could not be answered by BASE alone. The exact design of this transition phase is to be developed by the end of 2026 in an exchange involving all actors and stakeholders.

BASE also made it clear that it advocates an overarching master schedule for the site selection procedure, a demand raised by many parties (including the BGE).

Prioritisation of measures

With regard to the prioritisation of measures and resources, BASE explained that, for example, it had deleted the measure “Expert Pool for Repository Search” as a separate measure based on feedback from the consultation and integrated it into the measure “Foundations for Regional Conferences & Council of the Regions Specialist Conference” – also to clarify that this is the primary purpose of the expert pool. In the interests of expectation management, a note was added to the concept regarding the measure “Funding Programme for Civil Society”, stating that no statements can be made regarding the scope of the funding programme at this time, as financial resources and personnel resources depend on budgetary and legal frameworks. Nevertheless, from BASE’s perspective, both measures are important elements in participation on the path to the Regional Conferences and beyond.

Some participants expressed that they would have wished for BASE not to refer to the detailed concepts of the measures so frequently in the answers in the table. BASE made it clear that this lies in the nature of the overarching participation concept. Many of the comments from the consultation were very concrete, which is to be welcomed, but they went beyond the high-level scope of the concept and therefore could not be directly taken into account within it. The reference to consideration in the detailed concepts in BASE’s answers means that the respective feedback contains valuable suggestions from BASE’s perspective, to which BASE will return when developing the detailed concepts. Where BASE held a different technical view regarding comments from the consultation, this was formulated accordingly in the answers.

What happens next?

Finally, the question of how to proceed with the participation concept was discussed. There was broad consensus among the participants that it made little sense to continually update the overarching participation concept. Instead, the concept could be reviewed annually, e.g. at the Repository Search Forum, and adjustments made resulting from the status of the procedure and the needs of the stakeholder groups. It is crucial to proceed to the implementation of the measures and to involve the public in the drafting of the detailed concepts. This is also the focus of BASE. Therefore, BASE will concretise its planning as soon as possible, in particular for the preparation of the Regional Conferences including the participatory process for developing the foundations, and subsequently present this to the public.

For BASE as the body responsible for public participation, it is particularly important in the current phase of the procedure to lay the foundations for a swift and successful start to the Regional Conferences so that they can quickly exercise their statutory participation rights following the proposal of site regions by the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE). This is accompanied by the preparation of further statutory formats (in addition to Regional Conferences, also the Council of the Regions Specialist Conference as well as statement procedures and public hearings). The corresponding content-related and organisational prerequisites must now be created for this.