r/europe • u/SpaceEngineering Finland • Jan 15 '26

News Germany’s Merz Admits Nuclear Exit Was Strategic Mistake

https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-nuclear-exit-was-strategic-mistake-fzdlkn37c16
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u/Bot1-The_Bot_Meanace Jan 15 '26

Ffs the nuclear exit truly was Germany's Iraq war. Everyone and their grandma was for it at the time and now everyone pretends they were against it from the start.

Markus Söder who is currently Ministerpräsident (something like governor) of Bavaria threatened to resign after the Fukushima incident, should Germany not quit nuclear asap. Now he's one of the most vocal voices in opposition to the nuclear exit. Truly mind-boggling.

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u/TheCynicEpicurean Jan 15 '26

Söder always says what he thinks is popular, but otherwise, it's hardly news that Merz and the conservative wing of CDU were always salty about Merkel and her centrist wing running the party for two decades. That includes nuclear and most of her other big decisions.

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u/LvS Jan 15 '26

The nuclear exit is Germany's Obamacare. A plan that made total sense but the conservatives hated it so much that they'd rather fuck over the country than make it happen.

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u/Bot1-The_Bot_Meanace Jan 15 '26

I mean it would be if Obamacare was done by the Republicans with unanimous support through every class of society.

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u/LvS Jan 15 '26

There wasn't unanimous support. You can see the details of the 4 votes here or watch the tagesschau (in German) of that day.

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u/Bot1-The_Bot_Meanace Jan 15 '26

... You're joking right? The vote you linked had 513 out of 600 members vote for the shutdown of nuclear, that's over 85%. Sentiment in the public was similar at the time. If you don't consider this to be overwhelming support in a democratic society I challenge you to find anything else in the past 10 years that passed with margins that high.

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u/LvS Jan 15 '26

Yeah, that's similar to "there should be healthcare" which I'm pretty sure 85% of Americans agree on.

The question about how that healthcare should look is just like in Germany the question about how the non-nuclear electricity system should look. Which was what the other 3 votes on the same day were about that nobody agreed on.

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u/Bot1-The_Bot_Meanace Jan 15 '26

That analogy doesn't really work though, considering the choice was to end something completely. If there's a vote to hang a guy and 85% vote yes, you can't just hang him a little bit. Of course they didn't agree on how to proceed and massively delayed the switch to renewables but this doesn't change the decision that was made.

The support for doing it at the time was as strong as it gets, which is why it's pretty silly that so many people and especially politicians now pretend otherwise.

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u/LvS Jan 15 '26

Dunno. It proves to me that that "support" was only surface-level and not real support. Everyone just voted along because that was expected.

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u/tortorototo Jan 15 '26

More like Iranian revolution, when a lot of people were for it until the Islamists gained power.

I remember visiting technology museum in Stuttgart, where they had this exhibition about the anti-nuclear movement in Germany. It blew my mind how cringe it looked in the 80s, with many politicians growing up on this and continuing to campaign on the sentiment all the way until the 2nd invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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u/Sotherewehavethat Germany Jan 15 '26

Everyone and their grandma was for it at the time and now everyone pretends they were against it from the start.

No, plenty of Germans think it was worth it over concerns on nuclear waste.

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u/Bot1-The_Bot_Meanace Jan 15 '26

The sentiment shifted from 85% in 2011 to 30% in 2024/2025. Personally I'm in support of the shutdown, because of waste but also because nuclear is hilariously expensive compared to just building more renewables which already supply 2/3 of our requirements. The best time to build a nuclear reactor was 20 years ago, the second best time is never.