In 1990, about 30 percent of the EU’s electricity was generated by nuclear power, a share that has fallen by about half since then.
The EU’s top bureaucrat, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, has now admitted that it was a “strategic mistake . . . for Europe to [have turned] its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power.”
Von der Leyen’s native Germany took a political decision under then-Chancellor Angela Merkel to phase out nuclear power plants owing to public opposition and safety concerns after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Von der Leyen was a minister in Merkel’s government when that decision was made.
There were three key elements in Merkel’s Energiewende, resuming the phase-out of Germany’s nuclear power stations, accelerating the switch to “renewables” and, while that transition was going on, heavy reliance on imports of Russian natural gas, supposedly as a bridge fuel. Each of those bets has turned out to be a disaster.
Meanwhile, under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an authoritarian socialist, Spain, is (so far) sticking to a contentious plan to phase out its nuclear power stations by 2035, which is, to be fair, on brand. He is not exactly the first socialist to have learned nothing from the failures of the past.
For his part, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has described his country’s nuclear phase-out as a serious mistake but has said that it cannot be reversed. To do so would, in his view, be impractical. That verdict will, in part, reflect political realities. Merz’s CDU/CSU grouping is in coalition with the center-left SPD, which is firmly opposed to any sort of reversal of the phase-out. The populist-right AfD favors nuclear power, but any dealings with them remain taboo.
Von der Leyen has (somewhat unusually) said the right thing, but, while a good number of EU member-states remain committed (or have recommitted) to nuclear power, the road back, even with, as some envisage, the help of SMRs, to 30 percent (or more) will be a long one.