A CDU MP messed up the traffic light’s summer break and procured ammunition for the state elections. But that’s not all.
You know that: You’ve just finished applying lotion, the wristband sits securely on your wrist and you’ve already exchanged looks with the bartender at the pool counter, ordering drinks. The smartwatch vibrates – shit, an email from the boss. Beer helmet off, laptop on again, work is calling.
A gigantic version of this holiday malaise was served up by the Federal Constitutional Court on Wednesday evening. Political Berlin drank beer, wine and champagne at countless evening receptions before the summer break, people talked about this and that niche project, parental allowance, the traffic light – the breaking news was buzzing in the inside pockets: “Building Energy Law must not be discussed before the summer break”.
The coalition must take its time for the heating law, according to the rough summary of the decision of the highest German court. The judges conceded that the schedule could get tight, but then you would have to meet during the summer break – bad luck, keep your eyes open when choosing a career.
Union and AfD in luck
The reactions to this absolutely unexpected admonition from Karlsruhe were not long in coming. In the Union, people complained that the Federal Constitutional Court interfered too much in politics, but was “not the better legislator”. The AfD complained that the court presented itself as a “political player”. Ah, wait, that’s not true, those were voices the conservatives and right-wing extremists, when the Karlsruhe judges decided something completely different years ago. I must have gotten lost in my research! Big sorry!
This time, Karlsruhe completely enraptured the opposition parties, after all it was against the traffic light: CDU leader Friedrich Merz praised that the court would do that Raise the “prestige” of politics. The AfD cheered “Constitutional Court agrees with us!”, which is interesting because only a few MPs had joined the party, and against the will of the plaintiff, CDU MP Thomas Heilmann. No one from the Union had stood by his side in advance. Heilmann is now “CDU hero for a few days” (FAZ), a sought-after selfie decoration – Heilmann, how cool, man!
But that’s the way it is with surprises from Karlsruhe: You have to find a way to shoot quickly, the truth becomes irrelevant – and what was accused of Karlsruhe a few years ago is suddenly forgotten. Incidentally, it was just as wrong that others celebrated the decision as a salvation from the “heating hammer”. The “Bild” newspaper even quoted “the strongest sentences” – which is a journalistic pull-up in view of the relatively sentence-rich explanations. In any case, it seems as if the highest German court was just able to pull the emergency brake against the traffic light madness.
No decision on the heating law
But the decision is not a judgement, just a decision. What sounds more formal is actually it: the judges have not decided anything on the Building Energy Act, they have not even decided whether the coalition is forging too hasty schedules. The judges were merely weighing how they could make a less bad mistake: to let the matter go wrong or to intervene wrongly? They chose the latter – and intervened.
Some now saw Parliament strengthened. That too is doubtful. In fact, the court interfered above all, namely in parliamentary matters. The judges have given parliamentarians their right to sufficient time with the bill – but on the other hand curtailed their rights to forge their own timetables.
In view of the mood in the country against the heating hammer, it was downright brave that right-wing journalists from the “Süddeutsche” and “Legal Tribune Online” pointed out this aspect. Because “with interventions in political timing” the court “easily becomes a political actor itself”, wrote Wolfgang Janisch. Sounds like the CDU criticism from back then. “The Federal Constitutional Court is overreaching”, is also Hasso Suliak from LTO and sounds like the AfD in the pandemic. Dazzling Karlsruhe!
An uncomfortable truth
So what’s left? Heilmann has put his finger in a wound that is still weeping: We get laws that have not been read properly. Democracy has at times really become a “formality” given the urgency and complexity of many projects. The Bavarian Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger has just introduced the Green Party member of the state parliament, Katharina Schulze, to the concept of formal democracy provoked. Here, however, Aiwanger’s abuse is correct, in a subtle, papery way: It was always a wild fantasy that all members of the Bundestag passed a law when they voted – but at least specialist politicians should be able to understand the material.
In the meantime, however, time is becoming increasingly scarce, both for parliamentary deliberations and for discussions with associations. Politicians are simply dependent on their – albeit interest-tinged – expertise. This applies to lobbyists, such as consumer protection and environmental groups, who are perceived as “good” by the public, as well as to those who are supposedly “bad”, i.e. industry representatives.
The annual conferences of the associations therefore now sound surprisingly the same over the years and sectors: people always complain that there is no time to study the thick volumes at all – sometimes a weekend has to be enough.
Completely or partially under the radar
Admittedly, there are problems with democracy that are sexier. The loss of trust in institutions, for example, falling voter turnout, suspicion of elites, attacks on MPs’ offices. But when laws go under the radar in whole or in part due to a lack of time, that too is a real problem, even if we don’t feel the effects until late.
It is possible that the CDU politician has not only given the Union an election campaign topic for the summer and the upcoming state elections. Of course, the Scholz government will not get rid of this flaw anytime soon. The narrative that there in Berlin would reign over the heads of the people, even the people’s representatives, is now getting fresh nourishment.
But the miserable debate about heating has something useful after all: Good laws take time. Especially when it comes to the climate.