German Chancellor Laments Nuclear Exit: 'Wrong Decision, But Irreversible'

Germany finds itself unable to join the global nuclear renaissance even if it wanted to. The country is paying a steep price for its past nuclear phase-out policy.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz lamented on the 10th that "the previous government's nuclear phase-out policy was wrong, but that decision cannot be reversed." He explained that restarting plants under decommissioning would require costs and time comparable to new construction, making a return to nuclear power difficult.

While other European Union leaders on the same day reflected on their past nuclear phase-out stance as a "strategic mistake" and announced massive nuclear investments in response to geopolitical crises including the Middle East conflict, Germany remains trapped in the quagmire of its nuclear exit. European nations have already abandoned their nuclear phase-out policies and are pursuing new plant construction for energy security following the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022.

Germany's painful policy failure vividly demonstrates the consequences of a wrongly fastened first button. After abandoning nuclear power—which accounted for 30% of its electricity—following Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, Germany has been forced to import electricity from countries including the Czech Republic. Although the country increased its renewable energy share, it has failed to overcome intermittency issues and is now pursuing new gas-fired power plants, contradicting its decarbonization goals. Meanwhile, soaring industrial electricity rates have led to significant increases in corporate bankruptcies and unemployment. If Germany falls behind in the nuclear revival competition, its industrial competitiveness is likely to decline further.

Energy policy is a critical matter of national survival. Its importance grows daily due to developments including the artificial intelligence revolution. Nuclear power in particular is central to energy sovereignty, decarbonization, and job creation.

The government should now take Germany as a cautionary tale and carefully refine a rational energy mix strategy combining renewable energy and nuclear power. If national long-term planning wavers according to political administrations and ideology, it will be difficult to develop nuclear power as a new growth engine.

The industrial sector already bears deep trauma-like scars from the Moon Jae-in administration's hasty nuclear phase-out that shook the nuclear ecosystem to its roots. The government must expedite follow-up work including site selection and radioactive waste storage facility construction for the promised two new large-scale nuclear plants. The Middle East crisis should also prompt acceleration of supply line diversification, strategic petroleum reserve expansion, and energy self-sufficiency improvements.