Belgium's federal government has announced it will nationalise the country's nuclear power plants, opening negotiations with French energy giant Engie to purchase the full fleet of seven reactors in a move designed to secure long-term energy independence. Prime Minister Bart De Wever confirmed the decision, saying the government is choosing "safe, affordable and sustainable energy, with less dependence on fossil fuel imports and more control over our own supply." Engie has confirmed it is in exclusive talks with the Belgian state, and both parties aim to reach a binding agreement by 1 October.
The announcement marks a dramatic reversal of legislation passed in the early 2000s that banned the construction of new nuclear plants and capped the operating lifetime of existing ones at 40 years. Belgium has seven reactors spread across two sites — Doel, in the north of the country near Antwerp, and Tihange, in the Walloon region to the south. Five of the seven reactors were progressively shut down between 2022 and 2025; dismantlement plans have now been immediately suspended. The remaining two, whose licences had already been extended to 2035, are currently offline for maintenance but are expected to continue operating. The government now intends to restart the shuttered reactors and develop new nuclear capacity as well.
De Wever has framed the decision in explicitly geopolitical terms. "In times when we increasingly have to endure the geopolitical context, with all its consequences for our energy supply and prices, regaining control over our electricity mix could provide a strategically important foothold," he told parliament. The prime minister has emphasised that failing to invest would leave Belgium entirely dependent on energy imports — predominantly fossil fuels. VRT's energy specialist Luc Pauwels noted that the takeover itself may cost relatively little, since the reactors are already fully depreciated, but that extending their operational lives could run into billions of euros.
The plan has drawn broad, if cautious, support across the political spectrum. The socialist Vooruit party welcomed the principle of bringing energy "back into our own hands," while insisting that profits must not be privatised while risks fall to taxpayers. The liberal-leaning Anders party called the move a "logical next step," and the left-wing PVDA welcomed the break with the idea that markets can solve everything — though both opposition parties flagged concern about the final price. The Flemish employers' organisation Voka endorsed the move on grounds of supply security, provided it does not impose disproportionate costs on society.
Economists have sounded notes of caution. Environmental economist Johan Albrecht of Ghent University warned that nuclear energy is becoming harder to integrate into an electricity system increasingly built around renewable sources, which are cheaper to produce in summer but leave reactors underutilised for months at a time. He cautioned that if the government and Engie fail to agree quickly on price and legal framework, the process could drag on for years. Belgium's reactors have also long been a source of tension with neighbours: Germany's city of Aachen began distributing iodine tablets to residents in 2017 over safety fears related to the Tihange plant. Nonetheless, with energy security now a defining concern across Europe, Belgium is joining a growing number of countries that have sharply reversed course on nuclear power.