Belgium and Italy, two countries that spent decades distancing themselves from nuclear power, have reversed course in moves that could reshape Europe’s energy landscape. Belgium formally scrapped its nuclear phase-out by extending the lifetimes of reactors at its Doel and Tihange plants, while Italy voted to lift a ban on nuclear energy that had stood since a 1987 referendum. Together with a broader shift across the European Union, these decisions put the bloc on a path toward an estimated 81.2 gigawatts of installed nuclear capacity by 2040, according to European Commission projections on nuclear investment needs.
The reversals mark a sharp break from the anti-nuclear consensus that dominated EU energy policy for years. They are driven by a collision of forces: the energy crisis triggered by the loss of Russian gas, persistently high electricity prices, and legally binding climate targets that demand massive volumes of low-carbon power. For the first time in a generation, a growing coalition of EU governments is treating nuclear not as a liability to be wound down but as infrastructure to be preserved and expanded.
Belgium scrapped its phase-out and locked in reactor extensions through EU law
Belgium’s reversal is the most concrete among EU member states because it is anchored in a binding legal act. The country had committed to shutting down all seven of its nuclear reactors between 2022 and 2025 under a phase-out law adopted in 2003. That timeline is now dead.
Under Decision 2025/2370, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, Belgian authorities pushed reactor deactivation dates forward by roughly a decade, keeping units at the Doel site near Antwerp and the Tihange site in Wallonia online through the mid-2030s and, in some cases, to 2040. The decision passed through EU-level scrutiny, including review of state aid rules and nuclear safety oversight, before receiving formal approval.
The practical effect is significant. Belgium’s nuclear fleet has a combined installed capacity of approximately 5.9 gigawatts, enough to supply roughly half the country’s electricity. Without the extensions, that capacity would have gone dark within the next few years, forcing Belgium to rely more heavily on gas-fired generation and imports at a time when wholesale power prices across Europe remain volatile.
By embedding its reversal in EU law rather than a simple political declaration, Belgium has also created a legal template. The framework clarifies how national decisions to extend reactor lifetimes can be reconciled with EU competition rules, safety requirements, and long-term decarbonization commitments. That clarity matters for utilities and investors weighing whether to commit capital to life-extension projects elsewhere in Europe.
Italy voted to end a ban that lasted nearly four decades
Italy’s shift carries different weight. The country shut down its last reactor in 1990, three years after a public referendum rejected nuclear power in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. A second referendum in 2011, held after the Fukushima accident in Japan, reinforced the ban. For decades, Italy was the largest economy in Europe with zero nuclear generation, relying instead on natural gas, renewables, and electricity imports. Italy remains the EU’s biggest net importer of electricity, bringing in roughly 15 percent of its consumption from France, Switzerland, and other neighbors.
In early 2025, Italy’s Council of Ministers approved legislation to reopen the country to nuclear energy, a move championed by Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin. The law enables both large conventional reactors and small modular reactor (SMR) designs, though no specific sites, vendors, or construction timelines have been finalized as of June 2026.
That gap between policy declaration and physical construction is the central uncertainty in Italy’s case. Large nuclear plants typically take a decade or more from decision to first power, and even SMRs face complex licensing and supply-chain hurdles. Italy has no existing nuclear workforce or regulatory infrastructure to draw on, meaning the country would need to rebuild institutional capacity from scratch. Whether Italian nuclear projects contribute meaningfully to the EU’s 2040 capacity target depends on decisions about financing, siting, and technology selection that have not yet been made.
The Commission’s capacity target and what it assumes
The 81.2-gigawatt figure reflects the European Commission’s modeling of how much nuclear capacity the EU would need by 2040 to meet its climate and energy security goals. The projection is published as part of the Commission’s analysis of nuclear investment needs and sits within a broader framework that includes renewables, grid expansion, and energy storage.
Reaching that level would require both extending the lives of existing reactors and building new ones. As of mid-2026, the EU has roughly 100 operating reactors across 13 member states, with a combined capacity of about 95 gigawatts. But many of those units are aging. Without life extensions, a significant share of that fleet would retire by the late 2030s, meaning the 81.2 GW target actually implies a net decline from today’s installed base, cushioned by new construction and the kind of extensions Belgium has now locked in.
The Commission’s modeling does not disaggregate the target by country in publicly available documents. It represents an aggregate EU-level estimate based on technology cost assumptions, policy trajectories, and electricity demand forecasts. Belgium’s extensions and Italy’s reopening are consistent with the direction of that modeling, but the precise national contributions feeding into the total are not individually specified.
Nuclear is framed within the Commission’s clean industrial agenda as one of several low-carbon technologies necessary to decarbonize heavy industry and maintain competitiveness. That positioning marks a significant institutional shift: at the EU level, nuclear is no longer treated as a legacy technology to be phased out but as a continuing pillar of the energy transition, alongside wind, solar, and storage.
A broader coalition is forming, but Germany went the other way
Belgium and Italy are not acting in isolation. France, which generates roughly 65 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, has announced plans to build up to 14 new reactors. Poland broke ground on its first nuclear plant in 2024. The Czech Republic, Finland, Romania, and the Netherlands have all signaled interest in new nuclear capacity or reactor extensions.
The contrast with Germany is stark. Berlin completed its nuclear exit in April 2023, shutting down its last three reactors even as electricity prices spiked and the country scrambled to replace Russian gas. Germany’s phase-out remains politically settled for now, but it has left the country more dependent on gas and coal for dispatchable power, a tension that sharpens as Berlin pursues its own climate targets.
The divergence within the EU means that nuclear policy is no longer a binary debate between pro- and anti-nuclear camps. Instead, it has become a patchwork of national choices, with the Commission providing a framework that accommodates both approaches while nudging the bloc toward maintaining a substantial nuclear fleet.
What stands between policy and megawatts
The harder questions now involve execution. New reactor construction in Europe has a troubled recent history. France’s Flamanville 3 EPR reactor, originally expected to cost 3.3 billion euros and begin operating in 2012, finally connected to the grid in late 2024 after costs ballooned past 13 billion euros. Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 followed a similar pattern of delays and overruns. These experiences have made investors and governments cautious about committing to large new builds.
Extending the lives of existing plants, as Belgium has done, is typically cheaper and faster, which explains why life extensions have become the first resort for governments looking to shore up supply. But extensions alone will not be enough to meet the Commission’s indicative capacity levels toward mid-century. Unless electricity demand growth stalls or alternative low-carbon technologies dramatically outperform expectations, additional reactors will likely be required.
Small modular reactors are frequently cited as a potential solution, offering shorter construction times and lower upfront costs. But no SMR design has yet been licensed for commercial operation in the EU, and the first European deployments are not expected before the early 2030s at the earliest.
Financing models, waste management, supply-chain resilience, and public acceptance all remain unresolved. Nuclear projects require long-term revenue certainty that private markets alone have struggled to provide, pushing governments toward contracts for difference, regulated asset base models, or direct state investment. Waste disposal remains politically contentious in every member state, with no EU country yet operating a permanent deep geological repository, though Finland’s Onkalo facility is closest to opening.
For energy consumers and grid operators across Europe, the stakes are tangible. Keeping Belgium’s reactors online preserves nearly 6 gigawatts of dispatchable, low-carbon power that would otherwise have disappeared from the European grid. Italy’s return to nuclear, if it advances from legislation to construction, would add capacity in a region that currently depends heavily on imports and gas-fired generation. Both moves reduce the bloc’s exposure to fossil fuel price shocks and provide a hedge against the intermittency of wind and solar.
Whether the EU’s nuclear revival remains largely on paper or materializes in steel and concrete over the next two decades will depend on whether governments can match their policy reversals with the financing, regulation, and industrial capacity to actually build and operate reactors on time and on budget. Belgium has taken the most definitive step so far. The rest of the continent is watching.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
