Agency, saying it had promoted “the construction of nuclear plants in all parts of the world, even in war and crisis regions. That needs to stop.” In 2015, Gabriel opposed a European Commission proposal for regional power-capacity markets, according to which utilities are paid for providing backup electricity at times when power generated by renewable sources, such as the sun and wind, cannot supply the grid. A free market backstopped by an emergency reserve will be cheaper and work just as well as capacity markets, Gabriel told Handelsblatt. He later warned against a hasty exit from coal-fired power generation, concerned that such a move could pile more pressure on producers still wrestling with the planned shutdown of nuclear plants by 2022. Arms exports Early in his tenure as Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy, Gabriel vowed a much more cautious approach to licensing arms exports, unnerving the sizeable defense industry and signaling a change in policy from the previous coalition government under which sales rose. In August 2014, he withdrew permission for Rheinmetall to build a military training center east of Moscow. Gabriel was bound by pledges to his SPD to reduce arms sales to states that abuse human rights and the rule of law or where such sales may contribute to political instability. He stated that controls over the final destination of small arms sold to such nations are still insufficient. However, he also indicated that the government would not universally block deals with countries outside of Germany's traditional alliances. Deals with such countries could be approved because of "special foreign-policy or security interests." In late 2015, his ministry approved a merger of German tank maker Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) with the French armoured vehicle maker Nexter. Gabriel has been criticized by opposition leaders and the press for failing to prevent several deals that resulted in a significant rise in German arms exports during his tenure, although a paradigm shift (lifting of the prohibition against arms exports in zones of war and crisis) already occurred before that. Digital policy In May 2014, Gabriel and France's economy and digital minister Arnaud Montebourg sent the European Commissioner for Competition, Joaquín Almunia, a letter criticizing the settlement of a three-year antitrust probe into Google; Gabriel later “warmly welcomed” the launch of EU antitrust charges against Google in April 2015. In September 2014, Gabriel called Google, Amazon.com and Apple Inc. “anti-social” for skirting