In her last show before the summer break, Anne Will discusses the impending energy crisis with her guests. Greens politician Göring-Eckardt no longer completely rules out stretching the Bavarian nuclear power plant Isar 2.
It’s Sunday evening and once again presenter Anne Will has invited competent guests to her show. In the last show before the summer break, the group discusses the impending energy crisis. Chancellor Olaf Scholz only announced on Friday that the federal government would help the ailing energy company Uniper. At the same time, he declared that no one would be left alone in this energy and price crisis triggered by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. “You’ll never walk alone,” he quoted the legendary football anthem of Liverpool FC, which has been echoing out of the mouths of beer-loving stadium visitors for almost sixty years.
The Chancellor deliberately chose this quote, explains FDP foreign politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff in the ARD talk. Scholz wanted to say that not only the state, but we all have to stand together to overcome the crisis. The state support for Uniper is not popular with the FDP, but it means concrete stabilization of the market. That is why it is imperative and correct. But Graf Lambsdorff also concedes: “Further development on the route will be necessary through energy saving, the mobilization of additional energy resources and relief.”
Scholz has an eye on the balance between government action, measures to be initiated and individual responsibility on the part of the citizens, says the energy policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Nina Scheer. Currently, it must be about massive energy savings. “We can certainly create even more incentives.”
Green Party politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt agrees that the state cannot possibly compensate for everything that people are now facing. “I think you have to be honest and say clearly: we’re doing this as a man or woman,” explains the deputy president of the Bundestag in a politically correct manner. “We urgently need to help those who are having a particularly difficult time. With others you have to say: You can help yourself and even add something.”
Journalist Petra Pinzler from “Zeit” is still skeptical about the topic. You have missed exactly this call to the people so far. Scholz never really expressed that he could not shoulder the problems alone.
Scholz’s words had no effect on society, according to CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen. The chancellor promised too much and too little at the same time. One must talk about the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging: “He is waging an energy war and a hunger war.” Germany failed to take action at a time when Putin was still weak, i.e. in the first months of the war. “A welfare state approach to countering this war will not be enough. Scholz promises more than he can keep.”
Elsewhere, the Chancellor’s promises were too thin. Röttgen criticizes that the government has no savings strategy. “We would have to adjust our electricity market and our electricity production, and we would have to get out of gas. And nothing happened.” The federal government wasted half a year.
The three traffic light coalition partners cannot let that sit on them. During the 16-year reign of Angela Merkel, during which Röttgen was environment minister from 2009 to May 2012, people failed to become independent of Putin’s gas and too little relied on renewable energies. The current government is clarifying potential savings, providing for fossil fuels, and wants to expand renewable energies. Röttgen gives in: “There were mistakes in the past,” only to add: “But there are mistakes in the present, and they are responsible for that.”
Now FDP politician Graf Lambsdorff is also getting involved: “The claim that we’re all just sitting around and doing nothing is simply not true.” Many people would have changed their electricity consumption a long time ago. “People know what the hour has struck.” Laws have been passed that are now being implemented, explains SPD environmental politician Scheer.
Then it’s hit and miss. Graf Lambsdorff praises the proposal by SPD leader Saskia Esken to pay the commuter allowance from the first kilometer. After all, it applies not only to drivers, but also to people who take the bus to work, even to pedestrians. “It’s a relief across the board.” And because the mood is good right now, the FDP politician is still in favor of price reductions in local public transport, for which the federal states are responsible. He rejects only one speed limit: symbolic politics.
And then the bomb bursts. Bavaria has a special problem when it comes to energy, says Green politician Göring-Eckardt. There are too few wind power plants, and in the event of a gas emergency, the energy supply in Bavaria may not be secured. That is why the Isar 2 nuclear power plant in Lower Bavaria is being subjected to a stress test. The special problem could mean “that the fuel rods have to be burned out so that you can make ends meet in Bavaria”. You have to talk about it if there is a real emergency situation there. Journalist Pinzler translates: “Of the three power plants, two will be shut down (end of 2022), Isar 2 will continue to run.” Goering-Eckardt is silent.
Count Lambsdorff seems completely surprised. “I see it with the partners so that there is an openness to control things,” he says. And further: “If it should be necessary, I gather from the statements that the stretching operation would probably be made possible, which is not an easy thing from a political point of view, but is right for the energy supply of this country.” In Bavaria, all democratic parties are now campaigning for the short-term continued operation of the nuclear power plant near Landshut.