April 16, 2026, 4:31 p.mApril 16, 2026, 4:31 p.m
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz does not see a return to nuclear energy as a short-term path to better and cheaper energy supplies in Germany.
Friedrich Merz currently does not see nuclear power as a solution.Image: keystone
With regard to the shutdown of the last German nuclear reactors three years ago, the Christian Democrat in Berlin said: “The decision was wrong. Correcting them will not solve any of our country’s current energy problems.” This is therefore only “a question of the longer perspective”.
The day before, the parliamentary group leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU and CSU) in the Bundestag, Jens Spahn, had shown himself open to a discussion about restarting German nuclear power plants. “In any case, I think we have to have this debate as a society,” he told journalists. Spahn referred to studies according to which the reactors that have been shut down in recent years could be brought back online with investments of around nine or ten billion euros.
Jens Spahn is open to a discussion.Image: keystone
CDU leader Merz emphasized in a joint press conference with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin that he agreed with Spahn in his assessment. Their views are “completely consistent”.
Nuclear phase-out was decided in 2011 after Fukushima
The last three nuclear power plants – Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 – were shut down in mid-April 2023. The government under Chancellor Angela Merkel initiated the decision to phase out nuclear power in response to the reactor accident in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. It was passed by the Bundestag, the German parliament, in June 2011.
The last three reactors should have been shut down by the end of 2022. Due to the energy shortage following the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, their terms were extended again by a few months. The systems are now to be dismantled in the next few years. (hkl/sda/dpa)