Dhe Greens feel they are in the right. At their party conference in Bonn, they agreed that the two nuclear power plants in the south of the country could run until April 15 next year. From a green point of view, this is a big step. The party does not see why it should go any further with the FDP, which insists that nuclear energy be produced in Germany by the end of 2024.
That was agreed differently at the traffic light, the Greens argue and read out a sentence from the agreement on the defense screen on the cell phone. They vacillate between pride and pain when they enumerate how far they have come since the beginning of the war: deliveries of weapons, a hundred billion program for the German armed forces, coal-fired power plants that are going back online, the village of Lützerath that is being demolished for opencast lignite mining . And now it is even time to phase out nuclear power and thus to the core of green identity.
“We’re proving that we’re surpassing ourselves,” Economics Minister Habeck called out to the Greens. “If you know where you stand and where you want to go, you can open your arms and be generous.” But the green generosity is exhausted with the so-called operational reserve for the two nuclear power plants. The vote at the party congress went smoothly, which was also due to the fact that one top Green after the other assured that this red line would not be moved a millimeter. And that in the end even Jürgen Trittin, an opponent of nuclear power from the very beginning, had campaigned for the compromise.
The nuclear power node paralyzes the government
The green position is now cemented. The argument at the traffic light escalated. The FDP and the Greens describe each other as ideological and screwed up. In Bonn, some delegates shrug their shoulders: That’s right, then the nuclear power plants will run out as planned on December 31st. The traffic light heads are looking for a solution. again. Even the frequency of crisis meetings costs trust. But as long as the nuclear power station has not been destroyed, nothing else will go ahead. A package is to be put together, various scenarios are spun through. The FDP agrees to the employment reserve and the Greens to gas and oil production in the North Sea?
“Save face” is the word of the hour. That’s what it’s all about, with the war raging in Ukraine, inflation at 10 percent, the country facing a recession. Anyone who engages in politics like this shouldn’t be surprised if nobody wants to hear the unctuous speeches about responsibility for the country anymore.
In the past week there would have been a chance to clear things up relatively quietly. Allowing the third nuclear power plant in Emsland to continue running could have been a compromise. If Habeck had then worked a little harder, the party congress would probably have approved that too. But instead of building bridges, the Greens and FDP walled in their own dogmatism. And the Chancellor looked at it as if he had nothing to do with it.
It is almost a year to the day since the traffic light decided to start coalition negotiations. SPD, Greens and FDP negotiated confidentially, spoke respectfully about each other and avoided red lines as far as possible. The FDP leader Lindner spoke of a “watershed in Germany’s political culture”. How the three parties treated each other was read by many people as a sign of hope that “a new start for our country” was possible. A year later, there is hardly anything left of it.
Everyone has their share
All three parties have played their part in making it this far. The SPD has developed a knack for noting down successes independently of authorship and for shifting blame away. The FDP deals with licking wounds and self-discovery. The Greens, who are so supportive of the state, lack a view of the whole. The party is unwilling to admit that at this time, people in the country are more afraid of utility bills and blackouts than a lack of security clearances. The fact that the nuclear issue was able to develop such explosive power at all is also due to the fact that Habeck did not dare to expect his party to do the stretching, but instead resorted to the unfortunate idea of the operational reserve, which nobody outside the green bubble understood.
The conflict over the nuclear power plants damages all three parties, even if a solution is found. The traffic light can only shine together. SPD, Greens and FDP look at their own light as if we were about to go to the next general election. One can only hope for the country that this is not the case.
