by Eugyppius
In 2011, when Angela Merkel decided that Germany had to phase out nuclear power because things like earthquakes and tsunamis happen in Japan, Ursula von der Leyen was Labour Minister and also vice-chair of the CDU. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, von der Leyen defended Merkel’s decision, insisting that her government had “to respond to the new developments”: the Fukushima disaster, she said, had shown everyone “that the unthinkable has now become possible – a worst-case accident in a high-technology country”.
Germany has spent the years since 2011 systematically shutting down its own nuclear reactors and also lobbying other European nations to do the same. Thanks to this very dumb policy which von der Leyen openly supported, our power has got a lot more expensive and our industry a lot less competitive.
Today, von der Leyen is President of the European Commission, and she has decided that maybe the phase-out wasn’t such a great idea after all. Far from abandoning nuclear energy, she now wants the EU to be become a world-leading “pioneer in nuclear technology”:
While in 1990 one-third of Europe’s energy came from nuclear, today it’s only close to 15%. This reduction in the share of nuclear was a choice. And in hindsight, it was as strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emission power. This should change. … Nuclear energy is reliable, providing electricity all year around the clock. … Europe has been a pioneer in nuclear technology and could once against lead the world in it.
This of course doesn’t mean Germany will re-embrace nuclear power. That will never happen: the damage von der Leyen helped work is wrought. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that while he agrees with von der Leyen’s views, “This has no implications for Germany, because the German federal government has already decided to phase out nuclear energy” and “that decision is irreversible”.
This article originally appeared on Eugyppius’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.
