A commentary by a retired Canadian business leader who lives in North Saanich.

Germany has long been Europe’s economic engine, and its GDP is still the third largest in the world, behind the U.S. and China and just ahead of Japan and India. But because of serious economic and social policy failures, Germany is now a nation in decline.

Begin with economic policy. Reliable, affordable energy is key to any country’s economic well-being. In 2002, Germany’s 11 nuclear plants generated more than a third of its electricity, with coal and oil supplying the rest.

Since then, huge investments in solar and offshore wind power have been made with the intention of phasing out fossil fuels.

Germany’s long-term plan, driven by an irrational anti-nuclear power campaign by environmental zealots, was to generate enough power from wind and solar to allow the shutdown of all nuclear plants by 2036.

Then came the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Although it was triggered, not by a nuclear accident, but by tidal waves from an offshore earthquake, the unwarranted fear of the plant’s destruction accelerated the shutdown of Germany’s safe and reliable........

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