DThe FDP is openly in favor of withdrawing the far-reaching ban on fracking to promote German gas reserves. Against the background of the Ukraine war and the dependence on Russian gas imports, his party supports “the significant expansion of domestic natural gas production,” said the energy policy spokesman for the Liberals in the Bundestag, Michael Kruse, the “Welt am Sonntag”. “We have always rejected the content of the fracking ban law of 2017 from this straightforward position.”
“As scientific studies show, fracking does not cause any relevant environmental damage under modern safety standards,” Torsten Herbst, parliamentary director of the FDP, told the newspaper. Anyone who imports fracking gas from the USA cannot be against safe fracking funding in Germany.
Banned since 2017
Fracking uses chemicals and pressure to extract natural gas from other layers of the earth. Since 2017, the exploitation of gas deposits in shale and coal seam layers has been banned in Germany because this is considered a threat to the groundwater, among other things. There are also repeated warnings about earthquakes caused by fracking.
In the USA in particular, the method has been used intensively for several years, which has led to a massive increase in gas production there. Especially in the wake of the Ukraine war, many European countries now want to import gas from the US in the form of shipped LPG instead of Russian gas from the pipeline. However, fracking is also the subject of increasing controversy in the USA due to the environmental risks.
According to “Welt am Sonntag”, the Professional Association of German Geoscientists (BDG) has now spoken out in favor of “considering” fracking in Germany. Germany could even become independent of natural gas imports in the medium term.
Politically, however, the FDP has so far been largely alone with its position. The coalition partners SPD and Greens strictly reject any relaxation of the regulations for fracking. Even the Union, which introduced the extensive ban in 2017 with the SPD, has not yet questioned it.
