Energy and Security Concerns in the Atlantic Community

Werner J. Feld

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367006136
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429709425
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book presents the proceedings of the fifth biannual symposium on "Energy and Security Concerns in the Atlantic Community". It aims to project what the future will hold for the peace movements and their effects on the policies of the Atlantic Community.

1
Nuclear Power in Europe: Social Movement and Policymaking

Michael Pollak

Some ten years have passed since most European nations planned major increases in their nuclear programs. In Western Europe, the major expansion of nuclear power began in the early 1970s and sharply rose after the OPEC price increases of 1973. As nuclear power became an important priority, it also generated a significant protest movement. Nuclear critics have attacked national nuclear policies and obstructed implementation of specific power plant construction sites. While a strong social movement had opposed nuclear armament in the late 1950s and early 1960s, civilian programs hardly encountered any opposition before the early 1970s.¹ At the same time, public opinion showed less interest in military issues after the bomb-test agreement in 1964. First, when President Carter announced his nonproliferation policy and pressured European governments to cancel nuclear exports, ecologists responded with a favorable press although they later abandoned the issue of nonproliferation when European officials criticized Carter’s policy as a means to reduce European competition on the world market. The antinuclear press also vigorously opposed the neutron bomb. But only the discussion on deployment of the Pershing II has favored the linkage between the civilian and military aspects of nuclear power and, accordingly, organizational contacts between the civilian antinuclear movement and the growing peace movement.

In several countries, the antinuclear movement has successfully influenced government policies and programs through administrative channels and court actions. Do these experiences in civilian situations also apply to the military nuclear policy? Is it possible to assess, by way of analogy, the chances of the peace movement for influencing government policies? For answering these questions, I would like to discuss first the factors that have allowed a social movement to influence policies in certain national contexts while they failed to do so in others. I will then address the problem if the same factors might produce similar consequences in the field of military nuclear policy.

To address these questions allows us not only to shed some light on the interplay between social movements and policymaking in Europe, but also to indicate the great importance this has for the study of international relations. While each country has its unique program for nuclear power development, the policies are closely interrelated. France and Germany, together with the United States, are the main nuclear plant suppliers for most of the smaller European nations. Thus, decisions about nuclear power in the smaller countries seriously affect the market for the French and German nuclear industry. Conversely, any significant slowdown of the programs in these two countries would greatly increase skepticism abroad. The issues at stake for diverging military nuclear policies as a result of different government reactions to public protest are even more drastic: it is nothing less than the cohesion and the present form of the Western alliance as well as the present balance of power between the two superpowers, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, but also inside the Western alliance.

Most of my discussion will focus on the Austrian, French, and German cases. Austria is the only country in the world where politics has led to discontinued nuclear policies, at least temporarily. The choice of France and Germany has different reasons. First, France and Germany are today the leading nations in Western Europe and are comparable in terms of economic and social development. Both have important national nuclear industries that are major competitors on the world markets. Secondly, although both are members of the Western alliance, they have different military status. France has its own nuclear armament, but does not take part in the integrated command of NATO. Germany, for historical reasons, had to renounce its own nuclear armament, but is the major ground for deployment of new weapons. The ongoing debate reflects these structures as well as the different historical experiences that explain them.

Contextual Constraints, Social Mobilization, and Policymaking

Looking at the impacts of public debates on the policy choices in different European countries reveals striking differences. In 1973, the European Community had developed a long-term energy plan that included major increases in the share of nuclear energy in electricity production. By 1979, examining the actual implementation of national nuclear programs, the EC revised its nuclear forecast downward. Whereas in 1973 it had projected there would be 160,000 MW in production in 1985, in 1979 it expected this figure to be 71,000 MW. Meanwhile, the economic benefits of nuclear power relative to other sources of energy are increasingly in question. After the Three Mile Island accident on March 28, 1979, the EC Commission predicted that its psychological and political impact would delay nuclear development in every country except France for at least a year.

By 1983, nuclear power was a major source of electricity production in only four countries (France, Belgium, Sweden, and Finland). By referendum, the Swedes decided in 1980 to finish the plants under construction, but to phase out the nuclear program with the decommissioning of existing plants early in the twenty first century. No further expansion should take place. In all other countries, the nuclear sector remained much smaller than initially planned (see table 1.1). But the accident, merely an intervening factor in a long-lasting controversy, simply served to reinforce existing trends. It only served to mediate a controversy that was already shaped by the differences in the political and economic contexts in which it had evolved.

Table 1.1 Nuclear Power in Europe, 1983

Country	Number of Plants in Operation	Nuclear energy as a % of total electricity generated
France	32	48
Belgium	6	45
Sweden	10	40
Finland	4	40
Switzerland	4	28
Federal Republic of Germany	15	17
Great Britain	37	16
Netherlands	1	5
Spain	7	9
Italy	3	4
Austri a, Denmark, Ireland, Portugc Norway	-	-

Source: Newsweek, February 13, 1984.

The state of the nuclear controversy, the interplay between a social movement and policymaking, has reflected several factors. The different degree of energy dependence among European countries is clearly important: those few countries relatively rich in primary energy resources—such as Holland with its natural gas or the North Sea countries with their oil—planned only small nuclear programs and were receptive to public concerns. Countries poor in resources have organized major nuclear programs and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Foreword
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1 NUCLEAR POWER IN EUROPE: SOCIAL MOVEMENT AND POLICYMAKING
• CHAPTER 2 ENERGY POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY
• CHAPTER 3 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE ANTINUCLEAR WEAPONS MOVEMENT: MILITARY AND POLITICAL DIFFUSION
• CHAPTER 4 PEACE MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE
• Contributors