International Studies Reivew Vol. 13 No.1 June 2012

pages: 67-88

The accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant on March 2011
has had a major effect on the public perception of nuclear
energy worldwide. In Europe, its psychological impact has
been particularly strong, as it happened exactly twenty-five
years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986. On a
continent where the highest number of nuclear plants is concentrated,
it has led several countries, including Germany,
to call for a phase-out, while other nuclear powers, such as
France and the United Kingdom, have kept their nuclear
policies unchanged, and reaffirmed their projects to build
new plants. These profound divisions among European countries
raise the question of whether the “nuclear renaissance”
will be revisited. This article examines the media reactions
to the Fukushima accident in several European countries,
and the political decisions that followed, in order to evaluate
the European responses to Fukushima. It focuses on the different
perceptions and their direct effects on the political decisions
taken in European countries.