How to proceed after the chancellor’s word of power

Shortly after the newspapers had described the Chancellor’s word of power on Monday evening as “Habeck’s GAU” and “Clap for Habeck”, the Green German Economics Minister spoke up himself. Scholz’s compromise is okay. In the “muddled situation”, Scholz has now made a suggestion “with which I can work, with which I can live,” said Habeck late at night on ARD. In the morning it continued on ZDF: “He took all the risks, and I’ll promote that we’re going this way now because everything else would not be politically responsible,” said Habeck. This advertising is also needed, because some Greens have already announced that they will not agree.

Scholz had ended a long dispute within the traffic light coalition – especially between the Greens and the FDP – with a clear announcement on Monday evening. The chancellor instructed the responsible ministers to make legislative proposals so that the three nuclear power plants Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland remain “in power operation” beyond the end of the year until April 15, 2023 at the most, i.e. can continue to run normally. The short letter says nothing about fuel rods.

Hardly any chancellor exercises the authority to issue guidelines

Scholz made use of his guideline authority. This is regulated in the Basic Law and also laid down in the Rules of Procedure of the Federal Government. According to these guidelines, the chancellor “determines the guidelines of politics and bears responsibility for them”. The ministers are bound by it and must represent the decision, even if they don’t like it. In the end, however, Parliament decides.

Federal chancellors use this instrument very rarely, since the coalition agreement usually determines the route. However, when it was closed, nobody suspected that an energy crisis would loom, which arose only as a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which also nobody foresaw. The new federal government was thrown straight into several deep crises that revealed gigantic deficits – from a desolate German army to a fatal dependence on Russian gas. The energy issue is loaded with ideology. Nuclear power in particular has been the subject of debate for months; you were stuck. After much hesitation, the chancellor intervened.

The Greens struggle with the clear announcement

Other Greens did not react like Habeck. Jürgen Trittin, for example, green veteran and former environment minister, criticized Scholz’s decision, described the “basis for cooperation in this coalition” as “severely shaken” and announced that he would not approve the proposed law. He accused the FDP of breaking his word, after all, the exit at the end of the year had been agreed. The Green Youth was also indignant. “That’s Basta politics, and we don’t need it,” said the co-head of the Green youth organization, Timon Dzienus. A debate in the Bundestag on the subject is necessary.

The green faction leaders Katharina Dröge and Britta Hasselmann tweeted somewhat tight-lipped that they “take note” that Scholz is exercising its policy competence and will now advise how to deal with it. They called it “unfortunate that Olaf Scholz and the SPD are apparently willing to put the Emsland nuclear power plant into reserve operation, although there is no factual or technical reason for this”.

Did Scholz really speak a “word of power”? The dispute seems adjourned; he is not finished. The Federal Network Agency warns of two hard winters, so the decision falls short, criticized the deputy CDU chairman Andreas Jung, who deals with environmental policy and belonged to the “climate team” of the failed chancellor candidate Armin Laschet. What has been decided is not enough. All possibilities for generating energy would have to be used.

The economy wants fuel rods and longer nuclear power

Business representatives also spoke. “The family entrepreneurs” praised the fact that Scholz had “brought the Greens down to earth”, but it is far from enough to only let the nuclear reactors run for so short a time. “The chancellor’s power has not changed much in terms of planning security for companies,” said managing director Albrecht von der Hagen. “But it would have been farsighted if he had also made provisions for the winter of 2024 and ordered fuel rods to be ordered.” The danger that medium-sized companies will have to reduce their production or move abroad because of the unpredictable energy costs is not averted.

The powerful Federation of German Industries (BDI) also made a statement. He described Scholz’s decision as “correct and overdue”, but not sufficient. Pragmatism is necessary to prevent social upheaval and serious economic damage: “Depending on the supply and price situation in spring 2023, whether it is necessary to continue running the nuclear power plants beyond April must be openly and objectively discussed,” says a statement .

The Chancellor tweeted in the afternoon that from April 2023 there would be an irrevocable end. He wrote: «One thing is clear: the nuclear phase-out will remain. On April 15, 2023, nuclear power will end in Germany. Until then, there will no longer be any tests, but as much will be produced as the last three nuclear power plants can produce – directly and without detours.”

Under his tweet he was criticized for it. One cannot know how the situation will be in the coming year.

The dispute is adjourned, it is not over

Scholz gave something to every coalition partner, the Greens more than the FDP. The Greens get the final exit in April next year, the FDP gets the extension of the term for three instead of just two reactors, but not the extension of the term they want until 2024. And apparently no new fuel rods.

For Thorsten Frei, the first parliamentary secretary of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Scholz’ letter of power was “something totally extraordinary”. Frei complained on ZDF that Scholz “draws his sharpest sword and then in the end it’s just a bad compromise”. He also tweeted: “We are trampling on European solidarity. While we are shutting down power plant capacity in one of our country’s biggest crises, we expect other countries to provide us with electricity and gas.”

The CDU economic politician and former Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner also considers what has been decided to be insufficient. She tweeted: “End of April? No impact on the price. If he’s really serious, then he has to keep it running until 2024 and order new fuel rods.”

After the Fukushima reactor catastrophe in 2011, the Union-led federal government under Angela Merkel confirmed the phase-out of nuclear energy decided by the red-green government in the early 2000s and did not reverse it as planned. The “traffic light” is now under increasing pressure to develop alternative energy sources. There is a risk of further company bankruptcies and popular uprisings if there is a blackout.