At a nuclear summit near Paris this week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the move away from nuclear energy in some EU countries a “strategic mistake,” describing nuclear power as a “reliable, affordable source of low-emission electricity” and announcing new EU financial support for nuclear plants. Her remarks reverberated in Germany, which shut down its last reactor in 2023.
Von der Leyen’s father, Ernst Albrecht — like her, a member of the center-right CDU and a longtime pro-nuclear politician — once tried to site a final repository for highly radioactive waste in Lower Saxony. The proposed site at Gorleben became a focal point of mass protest, and the repository was never built.
Germany’s nuclear history is marked by shifts in policy. From 1961 onward, 37 reactors at times supplied up to 30% of the nation’s electricity. Chernobyl in 1986 prompted growing public concern; the Greens, founded in 1980, campaigned strongly against nuclear power and helped push an exit when they entered government with the SPD in 2000. A later conservative-FDP government extended reactor lifetimes in 2010, but the Fukushima disaster in 2011 led Chancellor Angela Merkel to return to a phase-out policy that culminated in the last plants being taken offline in 2023. Spain and Austria have also said they have permanently shut down nuclear power.
Von der Leyen’s appeal for a nuclear comeback has met mixed reactions in Berlin. The debate resurfaces periodically amid the variability of renewables like wind and solar and during international crises that tighten oil and gas supplies, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine and recent Middle East escalations.
On Tuesday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a CDU member, said past federal governments decided to phase out nuclear energy and that reversing that choice was not possible. “I regret this,” he said, “but it is the way it is, and we are now concentrating on the energy policy we have.” Merz recognizes that reintroducing nuclear would require a Bundestag majority potentially including votes from the far-right AfD, with whom he has refused to cooperate.
The CDU and its Bavarian ally, the CSU, support nuclear energy, but the coalition’s junior partner, the center-left SPD, rejects new nuclear plants. Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) warned that nuclear power has already cost taxpayers billions and argued that if a risky technology still requires state support after decades while better alternatives exist, policy should change course. Schneider also dismissed a push for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), noting they have been in development for decades without a breakthrough and still depend on subsidies.
Industry voices are skeptical too. Markus Krebber, CEO of Germany’s largest electricity provider RWE, said investing in SMRs is not feasible for a private company under current conditions: no supplier worldwide can promise construction times with fixed, negotiated costs, he said, and companies will not fund such projects without that certainty.
Across the EU, momentum differs. France, which operates 57 reactors, has built an alliance of 15 EU states advocating new nuclear plants; members include nations such as Sweden and Italy. In Germany, memories of Chernobyl and strong anti-nuclear movements have left a lasting political imprint that continues to shape energy policy.
This article was originally written in German.