Central Europe Seeks Out Nuclear Power to Solve Energy Crisis

Meaningful elections in the region and across the globe will set the stage for Western support of Ukraine and governments’ commitments to combating climate change will be challenged at COP27.

Peculiar Energy Policies in Central Europe

On 10-11 November, the European Commission will hold the 15th European Nuclear Energy Forum in Prague.

At the same time, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that American company Westinghouse will build the country’s first nuclear power plant. Ambitious Polish nuclear investments plan for 4-6 reactors to be built during the 2020s and 2040s, but analysts are quick to point out that there is a long way to go to achieve this. Very few similar nuclear projects have been completed according to the schedule and without major additional investments, and the worldwide trend of nuclear investments has been dropping in recent years.

Similarly, robust ambitions have been pursued by successive Czech cabinets, which aimed to enhance the nuclear capacities of both existing plants at Dukovany and Temelin, but these have yielded zero concrete results in the past ten years apart from public spending on feasibility studies and analyses.