Not a renaissance, but divergence: the future of nuclear power in the EU

More affordable and abundant energy translates into a higher standard of living, stronger industrial competitiveness, and accelerated defence manufacturing. As soaring energy prices continue to undermine all three, the European Union and its member states are slowly beginning to reckon with the strategic mistakes they have made.                                                                                                       

Coal, oil, and gas offer Europe no energy source that is simultaneously cheap, reliable, and clean enough to stabilise an increasingly green yet inherently volatile energy mix. Worse, energy prices across the continent are now twice as high as in the United States and 50% higher than in China. Yet much of Europe turned its back on what may be the only currently viable alternative that meets all three conditions: nuclear power. As a result, its share in Europe’s energy mix has fallen from roughly one third in the 1990s to just 15% today.

At the March Nuclear Energy Summit 2026 in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called this a ”strategic mistake”, arguing that the most efficient energy system combines renewables with nuclear power. She declared that the race for nuclear technologies is back on, that nuclear revival is underway, and that Europe intends to be part of it, backed by a series of strategic plans and investments.

From exclusion to acceptance

The words of the European Commission President may mark the end of a major chapter in Europe’s long political battle over nuclear energy — one that for years split the continent into two opposing camps. On one side stood the French-led „Nuclear Coalition”, which viewed atomic energy as essential to decarbonisation, energy sovereignty, and industrial stability. At its centre was France, home to more than half of the EU’s nuclear reactors and the member state most reliant on nuclear power, joined by many Central and Eastern European countries that inherited nuclear infrastructure from the communist era and now see new reactors as vital for moving away from fossil fuels. Opposing them was the German-led anti-nuclear camp, which pushed a rapid renewables-first transition and brought together countries long hostile to nuclear power, such as Austria and Denmark, alongside states like Germany and Spain that chose to phase it out.

Throughout the 2010s, especially in the aftermath of Fukushima and amid the rise of the Green Deal, EU green legislation largely avoided recognising nuclear energy as either a clean or a transitional source of power. Yet this consensus gradually began to erode under pressure from Nuclear Alliance countries. The shift led to the partial rehabilitation of atomic energy, most notably through its inclusion in the EU taxonomy as a transitional energy source, alongside natural gas, which Germany strongly championed at the time.

Since then, geopolitical shocks have only strengthened the case for nuclear power. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis that followed exposed the strategic folly of Europe’s reliance on cheap Russian gas. Now, the Iran war and another surge in oil and gas prices are once again reminding the continent of the appeal of nuclear energy as a stable and geopolitically resilient alternative. The parallel with the 1970s is striking: just as the 1973 oil shock drove much of Europe towards large-scale nuclear investment, today’s geopolitical shocks could yet do the same.

France vs Germany: a tale of two energy models

Perhaps the strongest argument for nuclear revival lies in the comparison between France and Germany. The French nuclear-renewables model now clearly outperforms the German renewables-plus-gas alternative in both cost and supply. France typically benefits from much lower energy prices than Germany, which has some of the highest in the EU and even the highest household electricity prices among developed countries. Paris also generates significant energy surpluses, whereas Berlin faces recurring shortages. France is the EU’s second-largest net exporter of energy, while Germany is becoming increasingly dependent on imports, ironically, often from France. This has not gone unnoticed in Berlin. In March, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the previous government’s decision to phase out nuclear power a „serious strategic mistake.”

Fragmented revival, not a renaissance

Does that mean that Europe is now headed towards a civil nuclear renaissance, similar to the boom of the 1970s and 1980s, when most of the plants still operating today were built? This is very unlikely, given both the limited scale and geographical scope of the planned conventional build-out, coupled with the fundamentally different technological logic of Europe’s nuclear comeback.

There is currently only one nuclear reactor under construction in Europe, in Slovakia, while around eighteen more are planned. These include three in Poland; two each in Hungary, Romania, Sweden, and Bulgaria; and one in Czechia. A further six reactors announced in France will largely serve to replace ageing capacity rather than expand it. Meanwhile, Spain remains committed to phasing out nuclear power, while Germany shows no intention of returning to it. As a result, any increase in conventional nuclear output is likely to be concentrated primarily in Central and Eastern Europe.

Europe’s nuclear build-up looks especially modest when compared with the world’s leading nuclear powers. China is currently building 38 reactors and plans 42 more, while India ranks second with 8 under construction and another 14 planned. Even Russia has 7 reactors being built, alongside ambitious — though unlikely — plans for more than 30 additional units by the 2040s.

Yet Europe’s nuclear ambitions no longer lie primarily in large conventional reactors, but in innovative technologies, especially Small and Advanced Modular Reactors (SMRs and AMRs), as well as fusion energy. More flexible, scalable, and potentially cheaper, SMRs could be deployed across Europe on a far larger scale than traditional reactors, powering industrial facilities, data centres, and even defence infrastructure. To accelerate that shift, Ursula von der Leyen used the Summit to unveil a strategy aimed at deploying SMRs by the early 2030s through simplified procedures, de-risked investment, and greater mobilisation of both public and private capital. They could also offer countries now considering a return to nuclear power, such as Italy, which abandoned it after Chernobyl, a faster and more affordable route back.

In the long term, the EU’s highest ambition is to make fusion power operational — the holy grail of energy production, promising abundant, clean, and ultra-efficient energy. In Paris, Ursula von der Leyen announced €5 billion in the next EU budget for fusion research, aimed at bringing commercially viable fusion technologies to market. Yet the EU has still not published its long-awaited first-ever Fusion Strategy, expected in early 2026, despite the urgent need to attract significantly more private investment in a sector where Europe is rapidly falling behind the United States and China

Therefore, the future of nuclear power in Europe is likely to resemble less a true renaissance than a geographically fragmented and technologically distinct revival. It is likely to take the form of a limited number of large conventional reactors, concentrated mainly in France and parts of Eastern Europe, gradually complemented in the medium term by a broader and more evenly distributed network of small modular reactors. Beyond 2050, this landscape could be further transformed by the arrival of nuclear fusion.

Swapping one dependency for another?

However, replacing coal, oil, and gas with nuclear energy does not automatically eliminate Europe’s strategic vulnerabilities; it merely mitigates them. Like fossil fuels, uranium is a resource that Europe largely lacks and must import from abroad. Although the required volumes are far smaller — measured in thousands rather than millions of tonnes — the underlying strategic dependency remains. This is especially troubling given that Russia still accounts for more than one-third of Europe’s uranium imports, alongside Kazakhstan, Niger, and Canada. As uranium demand grows, Europe must not swap one dependency for another.

Europe must therefore urgently de-risk its nuclear fuel supply chain by shifting towards aligned partners, above all Canada, but also Australia, which holds the world’s largest uranium reserves. At the same time, it could retain limited imports from Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, both to diversify supply and to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the region — an approach France has already pursued. In the longer run, investment in thorium-based nuclear power could further reduce these import dependencies, as it requires less fuel and could draw on resources that are also available in Europe.

Energy divergence, nuclear divide

Europe’s diverging decarbonisation models — some built around nuclear power, others defined by its rejection — may produce a growing energy divide across the continent. The choices countries make today about their future energy mix are creating long-term path dependencies that will be difficult to reverse. Once a state exits nuclear power, scales down its expertise, and commits politically and financially to another model, returning becomes enormously costly. That is precisely the logic reflected in Friedrich Merz’s remarks: even if Germany now regrets turning away from nuclear energy, it may already be too far down its chosen path to reverse course.

Of course, new nuclear technologies such as SMRs could eventually help narrow these divides. But they operate on a longer time horizon of many years, if not decades in the case of fusion, while Europe’s energy crisis and strategic vulnerabilities are already here. That gap between immediate need and long-term solution may push governments back towards fossil fuels, especially gas, but also oil and even coal, which can be expanded far more quickly and cheaply, further widening the divide, as already seen in Germany and Italy. 

The implications could be profound: widening energy price gaps, growing disparities in productivity and industrial competitiveness, and increasingly uneven technological capacity and resilience to geopolitical shocks and pressures. Neither the EU nor its member states may yet fully grasp how costly these strategic mistakes could become over time.