The scales of energy: locating nuclear power in Europe

Abstract

Nuclear power has been in the centre of the most heated debates in Europe in recent years. It was a crucial issue in the accession negotiations with several new member states, is still cause for debate with Croatia's accession, and created an intensive exchange about the EU energy future after the Fukushima disaster. In this paper, I will look at the role of nuclear power debates as in the scalar transformation of the EU. While initially, the Euratom treaty was one the building blocks of European transnational cooperation, local conflicts about nuclear power stations created a transnational social movement against nuclear energy. In recent debates, nationalist discourses instrumentalising the people's concerns meet with the struggle between national monopolies and a liberalised EU energy sector, and transnational regulation and coordination in the energy/environmental field. Based on this complex assemblage, I will analyse how nuclear energy has become a crucial case in the formation of a contradictory European quasi-state.