The Economist (2022-01-08)

44 Europe TheEconomistJanuary8th 2022

centrating onhis work.“Otherwise you

willloseyourselfinthoughtsandnotget

muchdone,”hesays.

Thepuzzleofhowtoprepareforwar

withouttormentingoneselfisa collective

one.InKyiv,streets andmarketsbustle.

Nightlynewschannelsseldomleadwith

worries over war. But preparations are

afoot,andnotalwayssmooth.Inhipperar­

easofthecapital,oldair­raidsheltersthat

becamefancybarsandcafésmustprepare

tobecomesheltersagain.Athree­minute

testofKyiv’ssirenswasexpectedonDe­

cember29thbeforeauthoritiespostponed

it indefinitelythedaybefore.A poorlypre­

sentedplan ordering women in certain

usefulprofessionslikeittoregisterwith

thearmedforcessparkedconfusion,inter­

netmemesanda viralpetitiondecryingit.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s presi­

dent,isnotexactlyunitingthecountrybe­

hindhim.Pollssuggestthatfewvotersfan­

cyhimasa wartimeleader.Thatmayex­

plainwhyhistussleswithpoliticalfoes

havenotceased.Thepresidentpredicted

anoligarch­ledcoupagainsthiminearly

Decemberthatfailedtomaterialise.OnDe­

cember20thhispredecessor,PetroPorosh­

enko,waschargedwithtreasonoveral­

leged payments for coal sourced from

Ukraine’soccupiedterritories.(Hedenies

anywrongdoing.)

Itisnotonly thespectre ofwarthat

haunts Ukraine, but also thatof anew

peacewithnewpolitics.Sinceitsrevolu­

tionof 2014 Ukrainehastriedtoreformits

economyandarmedforces,andbuttress

theruleoflaw.Onemotivationhasbeen

thelureofmembershipofnatoandthe

eu, whichaskapplicantstospruceupbe­

forejoining. Buta Russianinvasion, or

desperatecompromisestoavertone,could

createaclimateinwhichUkrainiansno

longerbelievetheWesterndreamispossi­

ble.Thatmightcausereformtostall.

PoliticiansinUkrainewouldliketofeel

inchargeoftheircountry’sfate.Buttheir

wishtothrowtheirlotinwiththeWesthas

promptedtheKremlintodismissthemas

puppetsunworthyofdirectcommunica­

tion.In an articlepublishedin October

DmitryMedvedev,a formerRussianprime

ministerandpresident,offereda preview

of the regime’s negotiation strategy: “It

makesnosenseforustodealwiththevas­

sals.Businessmustbedonewiththeover­

lord.”RussiaandAmericahaveagreedto

bilateral talks, scheduled for January

9th­10th.TherewillbenoUkrainiansin

theroom.

ThatmakesithardforMrZelenskyto

adheretohiscatchphrase:“nothingabout

Ukraine without Ukraine”. His govern­

mentclaimstobeuntroubledbythetalks,

and theWesternpowers insistthey are

constantlyconsultingit.ButMrZelensky

mightwellbefeelingthesameimpotence

asMrSergienkoinVovchansk.n

Donetsk

Odessa

Kyiv

Sevastopol

Seaof

Azov

UKRAINE

RUSSIA

Crimea

Controlledby

Russian-backed

separatists

Donb

as

Luhansk

Kharkiv

Vovchansk

Dnie

per

Black

Sea

200 km

Moscow

EUenergypolicy

Nein, danke!

T

heendof 2021 broughtmixednewsfor

Germany’s  anti­nuclear  crowd.  On  De­

cember 6th the gaggle of activists who had

gathered  outside  the  Brokdorf  nuclear

plant,  in  northern  Germany,  every  month

for  the  36  years  it  had  operated  swapped

their usual thermoses for champagne. For

on  December  31st  Brokdorf,  the  construc­

tion  of  which  had  inspired  some  of  the

roughest  protests  in  German  history,  was

one of three nuclear plants switched off for

good.  The  remaining  three  will  be  closed

down by the end of this year, concluding a

nuclear exit two decades in the making.

Then came the downer. Just before mid­

night  on  December  31st,  after  months  of

dithering,  the  European  Commission  cir­

culated a draft energy “taxonomy” that la­

belled  natural  gas  and  nuclear  fission  as

sustainable,  with  conditions.  The  taxon­

omy, which must be finalised and then ap­

proved by the eu’s 27 governments and the

European  Parliament,  is  designed  to  steer

investment  to  climate­friendly  projects

(see Finance section). But if the aim was to

please everyone by finding room for all but

the dirtiest fuels, it failed in Germany. Rob­

ert  Habeck,  the  vice­chancellor  and  co­

leader  of  the  Green  party,  called  the  draft

“greenwashing”,  citing  concerns  about

safety  and  nuclear  waste.  An  mpfrom  the

Social Democratic Party (spd), which leads

the governing coalition, compared nuclear

supporters (ludicrously) to anti­vaxxers. 

Atomic  fission  was  once  the  future  in

Germany.  That  was  before  the  emergence,

in  the  mid­1970s,  of  the  world’s  most  en­

during anti­nuclear movement. Unlike en­

vironmental  groups  in  some  other  coun­

tries,  says  Jan­Henrik  Meyer  at  the  Max

Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal

Theory, Germany’s Greens emerged direct­

ly from the anti­nuclear campaign. Its pre­

cepts  guided  their  actions  in  state  parlia­

ments  as  well  as  the  national  one,  culmi­

nating  in  a  decision  by  an  spd­Green  co­

alition  in  2000  to  abandon  nuclear  for

good.  In  2010  Angela  Merkel  partially  re­

versed that decision. Less than a year later,

amid  huge  protests  in  the  wake  of  Japan’s

Fukushima  meltdown,  she  made  the  big­

gest u­turn of her career and agreed to turn

off all Germany’s nuclear plants by 2022.

A  disaster,  say  critics.  Nuclear  power

entails  hardly  any  carbon  emissions  and

offers  consistent  baseload  supply,  unlike

intermittent renewables. If new plants are

pricey  and  create  waste,  prematurely  de­

commissioning  old  ones  seems  self­de­

feating,  especially  when  bureaucracy  and

bottlenecks  are  slowing  the  rollout  of  re­

newables. In the short term the burning of

coal and gas may rise to make up the short­

fall. And the transition to electric cars and

the  need  for  clean  hydrogen  will  require

yet more electricity, and thus an even more

extensive rollout of renewable sources.

Many Germans deny that scrapping nu­

clear has made emissions higher than they

would  otherwise  have  been.  Emissions

from power generation have fallen, even as

nuclear plants have closed. Moreover, they

argue,  renewables  would  not  have  grown

so  quickly  had  nuclear  been  preserved.

“There was a clear connection between the

exit  from  nuclear  and  the  entry  of  renew­

ables,” says Simon Müller, Germany direc­

tor  at  Agora  Energiewende,  a  think­tank.

The  coalition  that  sought  to  halt  nuclear

power in 2000 also introduced vast subsi­

dies  for  renewables  as  part  of  Germany’s

Energiewende, or energy turnaround. If the

subsidies  hurt  German  consumers,  who

have long faced Europe’s dearest electrici­

ty, the rest of the world has benefited from

the  cheaper  photovoltaic  cells  and  wind

turbines they made possible. 

But Germany’s Sonderweg (special path)

in energy policy is not to the taste of coun­

tries  with  different  histories,  politics  and

energy mixes. France is placing a big bet on

nuclear;  several  central  European  coun­

tries see it as a way to wean themselves off

coal. Many resent the finger­wagging tone

in  Berlin,  especially  when  Germany  is

boosting imports of Russian gas. 

Germany  is  unlikely  to  try  to  overturn

the commission’s proposals, which would

require a big majority of eucountries. But

it  will  not  be  deflected  from  its  anti­nuc­

lear,  pro­gas  course:  the  commission  has

no direct say in countries’ energy choices.

As the euworks on laws to realise its ambi­

tion to go carbon­free by 2050,andfears of

a  winter  energy  crunch  grow,these  new­

year spats herald bigger rows.n

B ERLIN

Why Germans remain so jittery about

nuclear power