A controlled explosion on February 23 brought down the last of the two large cooling towers at the German Biblis nuclear power plant, on the banks of the Rhine, not far from Frankfurt. The first had fallen on the 2nd. It is about one of the atomic plants in the process of being dismantled in Germany after the Government of Angela Merkel decided in 2011 to completely abandon nuclear energy after the very serious accident at the Japanese plant in Fukushima. The war in Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis have led Berlin to extend the life of two of its last operating reactors by a few months (which should have been definitively shut down on December 31). But it is a temporary moratorium. The atom in Germany is kaput.
Almost at the same time, on March 2, the economic affairs commission of the French National Assembly voted to reverse the decision taken by President François Hollande in 2015 to gradually reduce the weight of nuclear energy in the production of electricity. in France and annul the ceiling of 50% that had been imposed as a target (it is currently at 70%). Not only is nothing going to be reduced, but Emmanuel Macron has decided to step on the accelerator again and build six nuclear reactors again EPR2 generation from now to the year 2035 and later to 14. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is behind this script twist. For Paris, the need to ensure energy sovereignty and comply with commitments regarding the reduction of carbon emissions justify the renewed atomic bet.
Germany and France are advancing in this field, as in defense, in completely different ways. Every man for himself. Which would not be more problematic if it were not for the fact that they are essential issues and where they can collide.
The tensions between Berlin and Paris over energy policy go back a long way and are rooted in the conflicting models of both countries. The Germans bet everything on natural gas – buying from Russia at cheap prices – which in the end has proved catastrophic. The French, on the other hand, prioritized nuclear energy, to the point of becoming the second country in the world –after the United States– with the most nuclear reactors: 56.
In the autumn of 2011, before the war in Ukraine was even imaginable, Germany and France held a first tussle to see which energy sources could be considered acceptable – and therefore eligible for European funds – in the transition period. towards a green economy. Each one swept to his house and, in the end, the commitment was reached to include both gas and nuclear energy in the so-called “European taxonomy”. But the war in Ukraine blew up this whole scheme.
With natural gas out of the equation, now the confrontation is on behalf of hydrogen, which is beginning to take shape – as a non-polluting fuel – as a viable alternative to fossil fuels. However, to make hydrogen it is necessary to use a large amount of energy. Germany, along with Spain, has so far defended that the EU only finance projects to generate green hydrogen, that is, through renewable energy. France advocates, instead, to also include a pink hydrogen, produced with nuclear energy.
To press in favor of his theses, Paris organized a meeting in Stockholm on February 28 to launch a kind of atomic alliance with the aim of promoting nuclear energy on the continent. The new club is made up basically –although not exclusively– of Eastern countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania. Sweden did not join – to safeguard the neutral role of its European presidency – but could do so later. In parallel, Paris threatened to abandon the H2Med project, the tube that would carry hydrogen from Barcelona to Marseille and from there to Germany.
In the end, he has succeeded in making Berlin relent. Last Thursday, the Secretary of State for Financial Market Policy and European Policy, Jörg Kukies, declared that Germany will accommodate the French theses: “We will not raise barriers or create rules that prohibit or discriminate against hydrogen produced with nuclear energy,” he said. . But these clashes leave their mark.
That of energy is not the only front of contention. The other concerns defense. And it puts back on the table the alternative game of alliances that Berlin and Paris weave in Europe. Last October, Germany launched its own project for a European anti-missile shield –European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI)– in association with 14 other NATO countries –or candidates– among which France was not included (and the bulk of the nuclear allies of Paris): Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom and Romania. Later joined by Denmark and Sweden.
The plan is not so much to develop a new anti-missile shield system as to jointly purchase existing short-, medium- and long-range systems: basically the German Iris-T and the American Patriot (and additionally the Israeli Arrow 3). The initiative has not gone down well with the French government, which has developed its own system in collaboration with Italy, the SAMP-T Mamba – whose latest model was announced on February 10 – and which sees how its most faithful ally in Europe will leave out. At least for the moment.
