At least six years have passed since European nations planned major increases in their nuclear programs, years that have been marked by intense anti-nuclear opposition in nearly every country. Opposition, however, has had greatly different effects on national policies. A few key examples suggest how political and institutional factors have shaped the varied governmental responses to public opinion.
West German courts, responding to a powerful environmental lobby and backed by provisions in the Atom Law, have imposed a de facto moratorium on nuclear power until the waste disposal problem is resolved. The government hoped to do so with the waste disposal and reprocessing facility at Gorleben and, in March 1979, an international review commission met to evaluate the site. Aroused by the timely occurrence of the Three Mile Island accident, how-ever, over 50,000 people turned out in a demonstration against the Gorleben project. This had a decisive effect: Ernst Albrecht, prime minister of Lower Saxony, declared that his government could not proceed in the face of such massive public opposition. Today the German government is seeking ways to end the moratorium by changing the legal conditions for defining safe disposal of nuclear wastes.
A very different situation prevails in France. While French ecologists have opposed their government's nuclear power policy since 1973, they have been consistently unable to influence this policy through legal or administrative channels. The nuclear power program has proceeded on schedule despite vigorous local opposition at proposed reactor sites, and government officials project 50 percent nuclear-generated electricity by 1985. Public opinion polls after Three Mile Island suggest the ability to manage dissent in France: over 75 percent of those interviewed felt that a similar accident could occur in France, but that if such an accident did take place, the people would not be informed of the truth. Despite this lack of confidence in official information, 45 percent of the population favored continuing the nuclear program, and 37 percent opposed it, a slightly more positive response than in pre-TMI polls. Few people expect to be able to influence a policy determined by the central administrative structure.
In Sweden the nuclear debate has been a source of political turbulence for years. The Center Party, in challenging the government nuclear program, provided an official channel for popular dissent. The nuclear issue became an electoral theme in 1976, responsible for the failure of the Social Democratic government, but the new Center-Right coalition government approved a plan to build a new plant soon after coming to power. When the TMI accident hardened public opinion against the technology, the Social Democrats, hoping to keep the decisive issue out of parliamentary elections, called a national referendum. The Social Democratic-Liberal Party choice to build six additional reactors won by a 1 percent margin, receiving 39.4 percent of the 6.3 million votes. All political parties agreed to abide by the outcome.
The Swiss have held several referenda on the issue. Antinuclear activists had proposed to give local authorities power to approve power plant siting, hoping that local resistance would block government plans. Voters supported continued central authority by a 1 percent margin, allowing continuation of the nuclear program. Conscious of continued opposition, however, the government proposed to tighten its licensing procedures, a move opposed by environmentalists who believed it would create a sense of security while allowing the nuclear program to proceed unconstrained. Voters approved the government proposal, but the opposition has demanded still another referendum.
Conversely, in a 1978 referendum, Austrian voters (also by a 1 percent margin) blocked the operation of a completed nuclear plant. In 1980 pro-nuclear groups reopened the issue, trying to organize a new referendum in the hope of reviving the nuclear option.
Finally, nuclear policy in the Netherlands has remained in a state of non-decision. Besieged by grassroots activism, the Dutch program to develop three 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants was first delayed until the completion of safety studies in 1975, then until the elections of 1977, and then until a national debate planned for this year.
The considerable variation in the policy response to public opposition in various European countries reflects several factors. The degree of energy dependence is important: those countries relatively rich in primary energy resources, such as the Netherlands with natural gas, or the North Sea countries with oil, planned small nuclear programs and are receptive to public concerns about nuclear technology. Countries poor in resources organized major nuclear programs and are reluctant to cut back these plans. Yet in Germany and France, both dependent on imported energy resources (Germany 58 percent; France 75 percent), the nuclear debate evolved in very different ways.
While the availability of resources is important, the impact of the nuclear debate also turns on two political factors: the structural relationships between governments and their nuclear industries, and the available channels through which critics are able to influence policy decisions. France, Germany, and Sweden have national nuclear industries, and their governments have taken direct economic responsibility for the nuclear sector. The high capital costs of developing a nuclear program brought close collaboration between these governments and their industries and the governments themselves became the most active promoters of nuclear energy.
Only those countries without national nuclear industries, such as Austria and the Netherlands, retained the option to renounce this technological choice, and their governments have been more responsive to public concerns.
More important in determining the influence of nuclear critics were differences in political traditions and administrative arrangements: the official channels for conflict resolution (for example, the courts or referenda), the possibilities for citizens to delay decisions at different government levels, and the openness of political organizations to dissident popular demands.
In Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden, the existence of official channels through which the public could influence policy gave the opposition the means to delay the expansion of nuclear power. German ecologists, backed by legislative provisions concerning the disposal of nuclear waste, made effective use of the courts and the dispersal of power in the federal system. The Swiss constitutional tradition of direct democracy provided opportunities for citizen groups to influence nuclear policy. Sweden is one of few countries where the nuclear debate has taken place within the traditional political process. In these three countries, political and legal structures provided either direct channels of influence or points of tension through which activists could indirectly influence policy by exploiting divisions within the political establishment.
In France—although public protest was as widespread and intense as elsewhere—neither the courts, nor the parties, nor the local governments could channel protest to the policy level. This is why the French government is the only Western European nation which has implemented its nuclear program undeterred by opposition.
The overall effect of public opposition on European nuclear planning is considerable. In 1973 the European Economic Community projected the use of 160,000 megawatts of nuclear-generated electricity by 1985; in 1979 it expected only 71,000 megawatts. Today, limited storage and reprocessing facilities in Europe are contributing to delay, and the economic benefits of nuclear power relative to other sources of energy increasingly are in question.
Does this mean an end to nuclear controversy in Europe? Even without further construction, the existing plants and accumulated nuclear wastes will force solutions that are likely to face continued opposition. The debate has been especially costly in terms of public trust. Increasingly, questions are raised about the efficacy of regulation and the dual role of the state as the promoter and regulator of a technology. The burden of proof today has shifted to the promoters of nuclear energy; and, as confidence wanes, the nuclear establishment must convince the public that the problems concerning the safety of power plants and the critical elements of the fuel cycle are technically under control.
Dorothy Nelkin of Cornell University, formerly a visiting scholar in RFF's Quality of the Environment Division, has based this article on material from The Atom Besieged: Extra-Parliamentary Dissent in France and Germany. The book, published earlier this year by the MIT Press, was written by Nelkin and Michael Pollak.
A version of this article appeared in print in the May 1981 issue of Resources magazine.
