Union demands restart
Dispute about the heating law goes into the next round
07/07/2023, 06:40 am
Not only since yesterday has the Union been calling for the planned building energy law to start again from scratch. Today, the Bundestag has to deal with a corresponding application at short notice. The Christian Democrats insist on more say.
The heating law, which was postponed by the Federal Constitutional Court, is also occupying the Bundestag in the last session before the parliamentary summer break. As the parliament announced, at the request of the Union faction, a debate on the decision of the Karlsruhe judges was scheduled for this morning at short notice. The CDU and CSU are submitting an application that calls for a “fundamental restart” of the heating law. Union faction leader and CDU leader Friedrich Merz meanwhile warned Bundestag President Bärbel Bas to do more for the rights of MPs.
On Wednesday, the Federal Constitutional Court had prohibited the final vote on the Building Energy Act (GEG), which was actually planned for today. The reason for this was an emergency application by the CDU MP Thomas Heilmann, who felt that his rights were being impaired due to the short consultation periods for the draft law. The heads of the traffic light factions then decided that the vote should only take place after the summer break at the beginning of September.
The Union faction now wants to discuss the events. In their application, it says that the federal government is “systematically disregarding the rights of Parliament and the Bundesrat through the excessive use of shortened deadlines for legislative projects”. The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on the heating law was “a serious defeat for the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and an exclamation point for the right of the members of the German Bundestag to a thorough consultation of laws”.
“Restore Lost Trust”
“The heavy blow from Karlsruhe for the traffic lights must not become a permanent setback for climate protection,” the Union application continues. It is therefore not enough “to simply push through the same law in a new procedure”. Only with a “fundamental new start in the matter” can “lost trust be restored”.
The Union faction also demands that “direct regulation for the replacement of heating in existing buildings” must be dispensed with. The aim must also be “to harmonize a new building energy law with municipal heat planning and at the same time to create clarity about the promotion of private households when converting to ecological heating”.
In the debate, parliamentary group leader Merz, CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt and Deputy Heilmann will speak from the Union side. According to the Bundestag, it is still unclear whether the MPs will vote directly on the bill or whether it will be referred to the committees for further discussion.
Dobrindt promises to take it back
In view of the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, Merz called on President Bas of the Bundestag to do more for the rights of MPs. Perhaps the judge’s verdict was “also an encouragement for the President of the Bundestag to pay more attention in the future to better protecting the rights of individual MPs and minorities,” Merz told the “Rheinische Post”. The CDU leader also repeated his criticism of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s leadership style. The chancellor repeatedly allows “individual federal ministers to argue in public for weeks,” said Merz, adding: “You can’t lead like that.”
CSU regional group leader Dobrindt meanwhile announced that the Union would insist on a withdrawal of the heating law if it returned to government responsibility. “If this law should be passed, we will withdraw it after the federal election,” Dobrindt told the editorial network Germany. The CDU and CSU would “make it a condition of any coalition talks that this heating ban law be fundamentally corrected and designed in a way that is close to the citizens,” added Dobrindt.