Powering the EU through Nuclear Energy: A Reassessment of the EU’s Energy Strategy in the Current Scenario

Abstract

The changing landscape of global geopolitics with the Russia-Ukraine war in the backdrop has hit Europe hard in many ways. Europe is being pushed into believing that if it fails to review its energy trade policies with Russia in particular and economic diplomacy with the world at large, it will continue to sponsor the war upon itself that it earnestly wishes to end. To achieve the expectation of not being a party in this war and ward off military conflict from seeping westward from Ukraine, the European Union has been compelled to undertake some decisions that it does not wishfully welcome, and more are coming its way every few days. A grave issue facing Europe is its energy reliance on fossil fuel and natural gas from Russia to keep its wheels moving. Long-term contracts by many European countries with Russia and the constant pressure from the US administration to impose severe sanctions on Russian imports, heavy tariffs on third countries that are Russia's active trading partners, and finding new avenues to energy are taxing challenges for the European Commission.  

A parallel challenge is the US's directive to increase the defense spending or find itself alone in the face of military tyranny. This article studies how the global powers are safeguarding their economic interests, throwing the European Union into self-pity and responsibility for a war that the EU did not start to begin with and that has resulted from serious miscalculations concerning NATO and its expansion. It is also an attempt to examine, while containing the current energy picture of Europe in the background, how using nuclear power for energy production responsibly could salvage Europe from its current financial predicaments.