Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter becomes Chair of the BGE Supervisory Board

Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter has been appointed to the Supervisory Board of the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE), and on 24 June 2025, the Supervisory Board elected her as its Chair. The Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for the Environment, Climate Protection, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) succeeds Dr Jan-Niclas Gesenhues, who left the BGE Supervisory Board on 6 May 2025. Gesenhues was Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for the Environment and resigned from his office and his seat on the Supervisory Board when the government changed.

For Schwarzelühr-Sutter, final disposal represents a return to an issue that has accompanied her throughout her political life. The SPD politician has her constituency in Waldshut on the Upper Rhine and therefore in the immediate vicinity of Switzerland’s planned repository for high-level as well as low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. She helped shape the debate on restarting the search for a repository site in Germany between 2011 and 2013 and then played an active role in implementing the first steps during her time as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for the Environment from 2013 to 2021.

Regarding her new role, Schwarzelühr-Sutter says: “I look forward to accompanying the further course of the siting procedure for a repository for high-level waste again. I believe it’s important to speed up the site selection process, and I’ll work to achieve this in the ministry and on the Supervisory Board.” The Chair of the BGE Management Board, Iris Graffunder, said: “In Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter, we’re gaining a politician who is familiar with and experienced in the tasks of the BGE in order to support our repository projects.”

The BGE is responsible for proposing the site for a repository for high-level radioactive waste that offers the best possible safety for one million years. It is also constructing the Konrad repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The BGE is decommissioning the Morsleben repository, planning the decommissioning of the Asse II mine following retrieval of the low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, and closing the Gorleben mine.