Union and left are outraged that the coalition wants to get the heating law through the Bundestag before the summer break. “A disrespect,” says the Union, “it sucks,” says the left. The traffic light sees no problem here – three weeks are enough.
The Bundestag works on at least two levels: Firstly, it is the stage to the outside world, then the much-touted machine room in which laws are made. This usually runs relatively silently – but not with the heating law.
In order to be able to pass the law, which is actually called the Building Energy Act, before the summer break, the coalition submitted the draft to the Bundestag today, Thursday. To do this, the debate first had to be put on the agenda; because when the parliamentary directors agreed on Tuesday, the compromise between the coalition factions had not yet been reached.
“A disrespect”
In the morning, the MPs must first vote on whether they want to deal with the topic at all. Even the brief debate about it runs heatedly. The parliamentary secretary of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei, says that what the traffic light is showing in the Bundestag is not a normal extension of the agenda, but “a disrespect” towards the parliament.
Green parliamentary group manager Irene Mihalic counters that it is Frei who is damaging parliament by making parliamentary consultation processes contemptible. “We’re doing a proper parliamentary procedure here in three weeks of sessions,” insists Mihalic.
Against the votes of the opposition, the traffic light then decides to discuss the heating law in the first reading. This is the official start of a process, of which all three coalition factions say there is now enough time for a good law to come out in the end. The Union and the left doubt that massively, the AfD considers climate protection to be superfluous anyway, their MP Karsten Hilse used his speaking time to scold “green communists”, “special democrats” and “coward democrats”.
“At least ready for debate”
Economics Minister Robert Habeck emphasized right at the beginning of his speech: “I think it (the law) is at least open to debate.” The opposition also doubts that, because what put the traffic light on the agenda is the old draft – there isn’t a new one yet, it should only be worked out in the legislative process, entirely according to the “Struck Law”, named after the former SPD -Faction leader Peter Struck, which states that no law leaves the Bundestag the way it comes in.
Union parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn calls this approach an impertinence. He quotes Habeck, who said early in the morning on Deutschlandfunk that the coalition’s nearly two-sided agreement on Tuesday still contained “a lot of imprecise formulations, and they’re in there because we’re not completely in agreement yet.” Habeck saw it as a “good announcement” that the draft law could still be corrected. Spahn, on the other hand, considers the procedure to be “messed up”, the law is “for the bin”. “If you really understand what’s happening in our country right now, then all I can say is: withdraw this law,” he called out to the coalition.
“The Art of the Possible”
Because this debate is also about the loss of trust. Traffic light representatives accuse the CDU and CSU of fueling the mood with their rhetoric, which has given the AfD a poll success. The Union counters with the accusation that the traffic light itself caused the uncertainty. A left-wing speaker says it “sucks” how the coalition is instilling fear.
Like Spahn after him, Habeck also included a quote in his speech – one from the “former chancellor I personally admire very much”, Angela Merkel. She said politics is the art of the possible. “One may see it that way,” Habeck continues. “But of course there is a limitation in ambition. What this government has shown over the past fifteen months is that politics is the art of making things happen.”
22 years to 2045
Despite all the appreciation for Merkel, Habeck bluntly accuses her and her governments of having neglected climate protection: The traffic light inherited “a climate protection gap of 1100 million tons of CO2 by 2030”. With the measures already decided, this gap has been reduced by 70 percent, with the agreed measures the coalition can reduce it by 80 percent. In addition, the previous federal governments doubled their dependency on gas from Russia and even subsidized the installation of gas heaters with taxpayers’ money. One shouldn’t be surprised “if the policy of the possible is only implemented to a very limited extent”.
Speakers from the SPD and FDP also argue that time is running out because not enough has happened in 16 years. Until 2045 – for this year the climate protection law, which was amended accordingly under Merkel, prescribes climate neutrality – there are still 22 years, argues FDP parliamentary secretary Johannes Vogel. That’s not a long period of time when you consider how rarely heating systems have to be replaced.
Three more weeks of meetings
There is also a dispute as to whether the law needs to be passed before the summer break. The CDU MP Jan-Marco Luczak says that the coalition is only concerned with Habeck being able to save face and the law being off the table before the state elections in autumn. SPD energy politician Nina Scheer replies that the time between hearings and the passing of a law is always short. This time, even before the hearings, there were “major change agreements,” “and then you say that goes against parliamentarism? That’s exactly the opposite!” SPD faction deputy Matthias Miersch admits that in the next three weeks of meetings it must be clarified how tenants and landlords can be protected from being overburdened. However, he is optimistic that this will succeed.
The hearings, in which associations and experts in the Bundestag committees have their say, are scheduled to take place next Thursday. It remained unclear in the debate whether it would already be clear by then what the later legal text should look like. According to the traffic light plans, the law is to be passed at the beginning of July.