At the change of government in 2025
Merz would overturn almost all traffic light laws
08/27/2023 02:38 am
The traffic light has barely reached its first half when the CDU leader is already thinking about what he would do first if there was a change of government: Stop the heating law, stop cannabis legalization, start up nuclear power plants again. Merz sees black for the future of the economy.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz has announced that if his party takes over government, he will overturn a number of laws introduced by the traffic light coalition. “Not a single new law should “trigger additional bureaucracy,” said Merz of the “Bild am Sonntag”. “That means, for example: We would stop the heating law.” It was “not only technologically wrong in this form”, but also “set one huge new bureaucracy in motion”.
The decision to legalize cannabis should not come either. “This federal government forgets our children and young people in the intoxication of drug approval,” said the CDU politician in an interview with the newspaper. The current draft law leaves “completely open how minors should be protected, for whom cannabis use has particularly devastating effects on physical and mental development”.
The federal government could not agree on promoting the economy, but on the release of drugs. “That says it all.” Merz was also critical of economic development. “Unfortunately, 2023 will be a year of recession,” said the CDU leader. “If the insane amount of bureaucracy isn’t stopped soon, if energy prices don’t fall quickly, then 2024 won’t be a good year either.”
“Industrial electricity price wrong”
If the CDU were to be given the mandate to form a government in the 2025 federal elections, it would reduce the tax and levy burden on energy, such as electricity tax, network charges and all other state levies. In this context, Merz spoke out in favor of “relief for everyone”. It is “wrong” to lower electricity prices by means of an industrial electricity price only for large-scale industry “and leave medium-sized companies out in the rain”. In addition, all decommissioned nuclear power plants would be “reconnected to the grid” immediately.
With a view to competitiveness, there have been calls for an industrial electricity price for months. This was originally proposed by the Green Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck – in the meantime, the SPD parliamentary group has also backed the plans in principle. However, the FDP is against it and so is the SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He warns of an unaffordable “permanent subsidy with the watering can”.
After a long struggle, the traffic light government agreed on the Building Energy Act, also known as the Heating Act, in June. It envisages promoting the gradual replacement of oil and gas heating systems and thus making Germany more climate-friendly. The adoption by the Bundestag was stopped by the Federal Constitutional Court before the summer break and is now to take place in the first week of the session after the summer break at the beginning of September.