FILE PHOTO: A worker checks a unit at Uniper's Bierwang gas storage facility near the Bavarian town of Kraiburg am Inn, Germany, June 10, 2022. REUTERS/Andreas Gebert//File Photo

The chemical industry is questioning the primacy of private households in the allocation of gas in an emergency. Securing jobs and thus income is very important for the families and “is higher for society than fully ensuring private gas supplies,” said the President of the Chemical Industry Association VCI, Christian Kullmann, of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. “What’s the point if households could continue to get gas but could no longer pay for it?”

“We in Germany have become too comfortable and too full on our pillow of prosperity in the past few decades,” said Kullmann. “Now prosperity and economic growth are hanging in the balance. This country is unprepared for renunciation. We now have to work harder again to defend the status quo.”

The federal government has activated the gas emergency plan because of the Ukraine war and has now declared the alarm level. In the event of a shortage, she decides who gets how much gas. Private households are particularly protected. Again and again there are demands from the economy to change the prioritization.

Kullmann, head of the Association of the Chemical Industry (VCI), warned in the “Süddeutsche” of a deep economic crisis: “In the event of a complete gas embargo, I fear a heart attack for the German economy, including our industry.” chemical products are needed for 90 percent of all production processes. The consequences for the employees would be serious, there is a risk of “a serious crisis, also socially and socially”.

“We are in the middle of an economic war against Russia,” Kullmann told the newspaper. It is therefore “naïve to believe that the reduction is due to the failure of a Siemens turbine. We are now paying the price for our solidarity with Ukraine.”

The VCI boss expressly praised the crisis management of Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens). “Robert Habeck is a good economics minister, I’m impressed,” Kullmann told the newspaper. He is “not a swaggerer and announcement world champion”.