Germany’s Economy Minister has publicly called the country’s nuclear phase-out a severe strategic mistake. European gas prices have surged 60 percent since the Iran war began. German electricity futures are now four times French prices. The country’s GDP growth forecast has been cut in half, from 1.3 percent to 0.6 percent.
This is Europe’s second major energy crisis in five years. The first was triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This one is triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran disrupting the Strait of Hormuz. Germany — which demolished its last nuclear cooling towers in 2025 — is the most exposed major economy in both cases.
France, which kept its nuclear fleet, is paying one quarter what Germany pays for electricity. The contrast is not subtle. It is a multi-billion-euro annual lesson in energy policy.
The admission that the phase-out was a mistake comes too late to matter. You cannot restart demolished nuclear plants. The cooling towers are rubble. The engineers have dispersed. The regulatory framework was dismantled alongside the reactors.
Meanwhile, Russia is deepening energy ties with India — offering fertilizer and fuel at prices Europe cannot match. Moscow is not solving Germany’s crisis. It is profiting from it, just as it profited from the last one.
US media is almost entirely ignoring this story. The Iran war’s most significant global economic impact may not be oil prices directly, but the cascading energy crisis hitting European industry. When German factories close because electricity is unaffordable, the recession will be felt in American supply chains too.
