Chancellor Olaf Scholz predicts a long crisis with high prices. Now he’s going one step further: Securing the energy supply is not a task that takes weeks, but years. The pace of switching to renewables is unprecedented for Germany.
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz assumes that measures against energy shortages will also be necessary beyond the coming winter. In a video message, the Chancellor said: “These days we are concerned with the security of our energy supply. It will be for the next few weeks, months and even years.”
It’s not Scholz’s first warning this week. Last Monday he had already prepared the citizens for a long-lasting crisis with high prices. In his current message, he emphasized that the federal government had already made many decisions within a short period of time so that Germany was well prepared “for shortages, for example when it comes to gas”. He said: “We build pipelines, liquid gas terminals. We make sure that we store gas in our storage facilities. And we make sure that coal-fired power plants are now used so that we save gas.”
In the long term, however, it will be about becoming independent of importing oil, coal and gas and expanding the share of renewable energies. “We’re doing that with many of the laws that were just passed this week,” said the Chancellor. This is happening at a pace “that has never been seen in Germany before, and that is necessary”.
On Friday, Scholz had promised the German economy “greatest speed” in securing gas supplies in the short term and developing a CO?-neutral energy supply. “Our ambitious goals can only be achieved with great speed,” said Scholz after a meeting with the four leading associations. When it comes to gas supply, the government will try “at an unprecedented pace” to have liquid gas terminals and gas pipelines built on the north German coast. “My goal: We won’t let anyone buy our guts.”
