Anne Will: “Habeck’s design has to go back to the assembly hall”

As of 3:17 a.m| Reading time: 3 minutes

WHow does Germany achieve the targeted greenhouse gas neutrality? At European level, one answer is that cars with petrol and diesel engines will no longer be registered from 2035. According to the will of the Ministry of Economics under Robert Habeck (Greens), the installation of new gas and oil heating systems should be banned nationally from next year. Within the traffic light coalition, the plans met with resistance, especially in the ranks of the FDP.

“Is that really well thought out?” Anne Will also asked the politicians Stephan Weil (SPD), Omid Nouripour (Greens), Christian Dürr (FDP) and Gitta Connemann (CDU) as well as Henrike Roßbach from the parliamentary office of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on Sunday evening.

He was “at times irritated” by the debate about the heaters, Nouripour explained. “What is permanent remains permanent.” When it comes to climate protection, the question of speed is “neuralgic”. However, the change to the heat pump only works with a subsidy program, the Greens politician conceded. “Climate protection only works with the people – not against them,” said CDU politician Connemann in response to the Greens’ plans.

There is a lack of electricity, heat pumps and installers. For the necessary heat transition, the government must rely more on emissions trading, provide money for building renovations and promote nuclear power.

The FDP has also always fought very hard for emissions trading and wants to “extend it completely to the building sector” in 2027, emphasized Christian Dürr. In addition to the installation of heat pumps, he called for staying “open to technology“.

For example, there are gas heaters that are “H₂Ready”, i.e. that can be operated with climate-neutral hydrogen in the future. The FDP parliamentary group leader repeatedly emphasized that Habeck’s draft was “obviously incomplete” and had to “go back to the assembly hall”. It makes no sense to break the law over the knee, subsidize the conversion with tax money and thus overwhelm “private and federal budgets”.

In the debate about the end of the combustion engine, Stephan Weil positioned himself against e-fuels. Although synthetic fuels are “very appealing”, they require “a lot of renewable energy” and generate higher costs.

Large automotive companies have therefore already “set the course very clearly” for battery-powered electromobility. Accordingly, the advance of the FDP “is not accompanied by enthusiasm from the affected industry”.

Rather, the discussion triggers “confusion”. Anne Will countered that last August, Porsche manager Oliver Blume praised e-fuels as a “sensible addition to electromobility”. Gitta Connemann agreed with this attitude. Even if the coalition were to achieve its goals for e-mobility by 2030, 30 million combustion engines would still be driving in Germany alone, she said. For this old stock, e-fuels are “absolutely” necessary.

Omid Nouripour highlighted other uses for synthetic fuels. They are “totally useful” in shipping and air traffic. In road traffic, on the other hand, they were not profitable because they required “eight times the electricity” to produce the same power as an electric motor. Christian Dürr, on the other hand, insisted on keeping the internal combustion engine. On Monday evening, however, both were confident of finding an agreement

This demonstrative solidarity was not able to hide the differing views of the FDP and the Greens. Henrike Roßbach made it clear: After the “acute crisis period of the first few months”, the “fundamental differences” are now becoming visible, which above all concern the “role of the state”.

While the FDP is about incentives and “little state”, according to the journalist, the SPD and the Greens believe in redistribution and “a much more active role for the state in terms of regulatory policy”. The budget dispute is just a “symptom” of it. And it is good that he is being guided: “The course must now be set and decided: Where are we going?”