DApparently he was shocked by the dig that Spain gave German politicians in the negotiations on European savings targets in the gas war with Putin: They didn’t do their “homework”. There is no other explanation for the increasing number of voices calling for penance to follow the Spanish model and set mandatory savings targets.
Savings are considerable in this country. Scarcity, price formation and the gas surcharge seem to be enough deterrents to make decisions that are not dictated by the legislature, but rather by business and private household interests.
In addition, the reference to Spain does not prevent politicians in Germany from continuing to claim that the country does not have an electricity problem at all, but rather a heating problem. A look at Spain in particular, where not only, but above all, electricity is to be saved, should show that things are quite different.
One mistake breeds the next
In Germany, however, the wrong perspective has become entrenched because it was intended to throw sand in the eyes of the fight against the further use of nuclear power. One mistake gives birth to the next: Instead of using all and not just fossil reserves, stricter renunciation is now being preached unilaterally. Even more savings can never hurt, but it would be absurd to simultaneously cut sources that help reduce or replace gas consumption.
Is it already too late? What the gas turbine is for Scholz, Isar 2 is for Söder and Merz: a symbol of ways out and at the same time of constraints. The further a decision is delayed, the more not only the traffic light parties, but also the CDU/CSU get into a political stress test.
Union and FDP nuclear parties again
Because the “stretching operation”, the wringing out of old fuel elements, brings less and less, new fuel rods are more and more worthwhile – i.e. the service life extension far beyond 2023. Union and FDP have adjusted to this in the past few weeks, Merz and Söder confirmed it again during the visit to the nuclear power plant. From the point of view of the anti-nuclear parties SPD and Greens, they have thus turned back into the nuclear parties they always thought they were.
However, in order to ensure effective operation – without long interruptions – decisions should have been made much earlier. The SPD and the Greens are apparently keen to increase the effort in order to keep the benefit low. They like to accuse those who are slowing down the energy transition. In any case, it is a very bad maxim for doing homework.
