German Chancellor Friedrich Merz does not regard a return to nuclear energy as a short-term solution for a better and cheaper energy supply in Germany.
Merz said in Berlin on Thursday that the shutdown of Germany’s last nuclear reactors three years ago had been a mistake.
“The decision was wrong.” But, he said, “correcting it will not solve any of our country’s current energy supply problems.”
The issue is merely “a matter of the longer-term perspective,” he added.
At a joint press conference with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, the chancellor emphasized that he was in agreement with his party’s parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn on this assessment.
On Wednesday, Spahn had openly expressed his willingness to discuss the recommissioning of German nuclear power stations.
“In any case, I believe we must have this debate as a society,” he told journalists on the sidelines of a research congress organized by his conservative parliamentary group.
He referred to studies suggesting that the reactors decommissioned in recent years could be brought back into operation with investments of around €10 billion ($12 billion).
Germany’s last three nuclear power stations – Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 – were shut down in mid-April 2023. The decision to phase out nuclear power had been initiated by the government of former chancellor Angela Merkel in response to the reactor accident in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. It was passed by the German lower house of parliament in June 2011.
The operating licences for the last three reactors were originally due to expire at the end of 2022. However, due to energy shortages following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, their operating licences were extended by a few months. The plants are now to be decommissioned over the coming years.