The FDP blocked the planned heating law by Economics Minister Habeck. It is perhaps the coalition’s biggest crisis. Is there any way out of this?
Why is the FDP letting the chancellor run up? To answer this question, you have to call Frank Schäffler. Schäffler is considered one of the liberal troublemakers. As someone who sometimes argues against his own party when he finds that his colleagues are wrong. But in this case it is different. Now he is the most vehement representative of the FDP in the coalition quarrel, their political megaphone.
So why the affront to the Chancellor and the Greens? Why now the blockade of the controversial heating law, which was already planned by all three coalition partners?
Schäffler takes a deep breath and then says on the phone: “I don’t adopt the Chancellor’s wording as my own. The FDP ministers have expressed their concerns. If Mr. Habeck still pushes the law through the cabinet, then from my point of view that’s a normal process that we want to talk about it again.”
Robert Habeck presented the controversial heating law – Building Energy Law, as it is officially called. The core: From 2024, only new heating systems are to be installed that are operated with 65 percent renewable energies. The Chancellor supports the plan. But there is disagreement with the Liberals on the question of how it should actually work and how it should be financed.
The sound gets sharper
Because there was already an agreement in the federal government, the heating law should actually be discussed in the Bundestag this week. That’s what Schäffler means when he says that Habeck “pushed the law through the cabinet.” A statement by the Ministry of Finance states: “The Federal Ministry of Finance approves the draft law in the knowledge that the parliamentary groups of the German Bundestag (…) will discuss this draft law intensively and make other necessary changes.”
Now the FDP does not only want to speak to the individual members of parliament again. But also discussed again at the level of the leaders of the parliamentary groups. The draft was “not approved in terms of content,” said Christian Dürr, leader of the Liberal parliamentary group. Habeck said on Tuesday afternoon: “I understand that the FDP is not keeping its word.”
The tone between the coalition partners intensified, word against word.
And that’s exactly what this dispute is about, as so often in politics: about words. The question of what “agree” and “intensive advice” actually means, who meant what and when. The law now depends on the interpretation of these words – and with it the future of German heating systems.
But one thing is clear: it is above all the FDP that is currently slowing down the law – and with all their might. How can it go on?
Are there really 101 questions from the FDP?
Economics Minister Habeck and Chancellor Scholz want to push the law forward as quickly as possible, it should be passed before the summer break. However, the FDP has been criticizing for a long time that the draft should not be implemented in this way. Then last week the inventor of the law, Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Patrick Graichen, resigned. Now the FDP says: please slow down. It is about an enormous amount of money and a great deal of insecurity among the population.
The Greens, on the other hand, argue that the law is one of the central keys in the heat transition, so that Germany can achieve the goals in climate protection. It must be approved as soon as possible. Habeck and also some in the SPD could imagine that the conversion measures for the heating systems would be even more subsidized by the state – in the case of the FDP, however, Finance Minister Lindner wants to save and comply with the debt brake in the budget. This Wednesday, the Union has requested, there should be a topical hour in the Bundestag.
For the FDP, the main thing is that open questions are clarified. The party had publicly declared via the “Bild” newspaper that they had 101 questions for Robert Habeck. That sounded like a wide arc being struck by the liberals. Now, however, an FDP spokeswoman explains to the “Zeit” journalist Robert Pausch: You have already asked “a few questions” and will now ask “further technical questions” in the further course. However, these questions depend above all on when the law will be approved, according to the Liberals internally. However, the large catalog of questions that was announced in the “Bild” newspaper probably didn’t work out.
