European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for greater self-sufficiency of the European Union in energy production in a speech in Prague on Friday.
“When we talk about our energy, we need to produce our own energy, more renewables, more nuclear energy and more efficiency,” she told a security conference in the Czech capital.
Nuclear energy is a hot potato in the EU, however. France wants the technology to receive more public investment and become a bigger part of the EU energy system. Germany is strongly opposed to this.
As Commission president, the German conservative politician has previously highlighted the role of nuclear power in the EU’s shift away from fossil fuels. But at the first-ever Nuclear Energy Summit in March, von der Leyen was forced to acknowledge that opinions on the technology differed within the EU.
In Germany, the last three nuclear power plants were closed in April 2023, after six decades of nuclear energy.
The country was so shocked by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011 that then-Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that the country would phase out all nuclear power.
In her speech in Prague, von der Leyen did not indicate whether she considered a return to nuclear power in Germany justified. However, she referred to the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine to support her argument.
Europe bought gas from Russia based on the idea that “economic interdependence is the ultimate source of security,” von der Leyen said.
“This was supposed to be a guarantee that Moscow would never start a new war on the old continent. This was an illusion,” von der Leyen added.
