The EU’s uncertain nuclear future
Half of EU countries, part of a "nuclear alliance", held a historic summit in Brussels yesterday. Are they right to say atomic energy can solve the union's climate and security woes?
The Atomium in Brussels, a giant building in the shape of an atom built for the 1958 World’s Fair, has become a symbol of the city. Since Belgium is a very nuclear-enthusiastic country (its seven reactors produce more than half of the country’s electricity), many assume it has something to do with atomic energy. It is in fact an iron atom magnified 165 billion times, representing the Belgian iron industry which was powerful at the time. But that didn’t stop the Belgian government from choosing it as the site of yesterday’s first-ever Nuclear Energy Summit, where leaders of 14 European countries and redoubled their commitment to the Nuclear Alliance, launched by France last year.
Like most alliances, this one has an adversary: Germany and Austria. Nuclear power has been enormously controversial in those two countries for decades, culminating in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s unilateral decision to phase out nuclear power following the Fukushima accident in 2011. That decision had massive knock-on effects for the energy situation in Germany’s neighbors, prompting much anger that it hadn’t been discussed at EU level. But even after 2011, in the EU Council there were enough pro-nuclear votes to beat back Berlin’s efforts to stop nuclear from being recognized as a low-carbon fuel. That suddenly came under threat in 2016 with the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Though Britain took a decision to phase out nuclear power in the 70s, both sides of the aisle now regret that decision and had been a powerful pro-nuclear vote in the Council. With the loss of the UK’s many Council votes, there were worries that an opening was emerging for Germany to move against nuclear. But Paris moved quickly in solidifying nuclear support in a more organized fashion, even from those EU countries that don’t have it or were uninterested in the politics. The outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and the energy insecurity that followed, provided the big impetus for the formation of one of the strongest internal policy alliances the EU has seen. More than half of member states have either joined France’s nuclear alliance or are giving it unofficial support (Belgium, Netherlands and Italy).