Europe's nuclear energy companies will be closely monitoring the German election outcome as parties debate re-establishing nuclear power plants in the country. While energy talks were overshadowed by concerns over migration and the economy, the country’s nuclear phaseout, completed in 2023, became a hot topic during the electoral campaign, with parties expressing different views on the possible comeback. The issue has become particularly sensitive as Germany tries to break its energy dependence on Russia, given the latter's war of aggression against Ukraine. However, the role of nuclear is set to remain limited, with renewable energies remaining the key driver of the energy transition.
Energy companies are closely watching the outcome of coalition talks to lead Germany, to see to what extent the new government might walk back its decision to turn off its nuclear power stations. The center-right Christian Democratic Union, along with its sister party the Christian Social Union from the southern region of Bavaria, came first in Sunday's elections with 208 seats in the 630-seat parliament, according to official results. Friedrich Merz, the CDU's leader, will need to work with at least one other party to govern Europe’s largest economy.
The conservatives could ally with the center-left Social Democrats, or SPD, who received 120 seats. There is also the Green party, which won 85. While the far-right Alternative for Germany party came in second with 152 seats, it is considered too toxic to be a coalition partner.
The future of nuclear energy is expected to drive a wedge between the center-right and the left-wing parties it is courting as possible coalition partners.
The CDU has said it is open to re-establishing nuclear power plants in Germany, including those that were recently shut down. The last three nuclear power plants in the country closed in 2023. The conservatives criticized the timing of the phase-out as it coincided with the dramatic increase in energy prices in 2022, which followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine and tougher EU sanctions against Russia. The war pushed the EU to reconsider its energy sources, and develop a plan to phase out the use of Russian energy.
Yet it was a fellow conservative, former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who accelerated the nuclear phase-out in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The Socialists, meanwhile, support Germany's move away from nuclear energy, making it unlikely that they would support a right-wing push to reopen the shuttered plants. The Greens have a similar position, arguing that new nuclear power technologies are of no help to fight the climate crisis, given long construction time, high costs and unresolved waste problems.
Germany’s utility companies and energy experts have also watered down plans to revive the nuclear industry. Former plant operator E.On said in November that restarting the country’s decommissioned nuclear power plants wouldn’t be economically viable, and energy scholars expect the role of nuclear to remain limited in the green transition, with renewable energies remaining the key driver of the energy transition.
— The Brussels factor —
Any potential attempts to re-establish nuclear energy in Germany could also face hurdles in Brussels, where European institutions have been sending mixed signs about their position on the issue.
The bloc’s industry chief Stéphane Séjourné has visited several nuclear plants in France, openly praising the sector for its cost effectiveness and low-carbon emissions.
Yet the Clean Industrial Strategy doesn’t mention nuclear energy as one of the EU's priorities in a list of initiatives to see a streamlined process for state support as part of an overhaul of subsidy rules to accelerate decarbonization (see here).
The French government has also consistently pushed a pro-nuclear agenda in negotiations on files in the Council of the EU, which represents national governments in the bloc's legislative talks. Over the years, they have had to contend with German opposition to their position — a shift that could trigger changes to rules at the EU level.
So will nuclear power see a renaissance under the new government? That remains to be seen. But if the conservatives can get their way, Germany may choose to revive a technology that it thought it had ended definitively only a few years ago.
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