Towards a 'Europe of Struggles'? Three Visions of Europe in the Early Anti-Nuclear Energy Movement, 1975–79

During the 1970s, opposition to nuclear energy was structured primarily by local siting decisions related to national nuclear policies. However, the anti-nuclear movement sometimes defined itself as ‘international’ or ‘European’ in view of the transnational links that existed among activists – as well as among their opponents in state and industry. This chapter examines three visions of ‘Europe’ articulated by the movement: first, the ‘Dreyeckland’ imagined by French, German, and Swiss activists near Wyhl; second, NERSA, the European consortium behind the construction of the ‘Fast Breeder’ plant in Malville; and, finally, the ‘Europe of peoples’ called for in Gorleben, where the ‘Free Republic of Wendland’ was realized along the border with East Germany in May-June 1980. In focusing on these examples, I show several ‘Europes’ of the 1970s: utopian and dystopian, real and potential, of varied spatiality and geometry.