After the recent promises by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) that there should be billions in aid for citizens due to the sharp rise in energy prices, leading Green politicians expect the debt brake to be suspended in 2023. “This debt brake will not survive Christmas. That’s the way it is, everyone knows that,” said Jürgen Trittin, member of the Greens in the Bundestag, to the “Tagesspiegel”. He justified this by saying that energy costs would increase by several thousand euros for the citizens. Economists who also rely on austerity would support the suspension. “In a situation like this, you have to specifically relieve those who are particularly affected, including the middle class,” emphasized Trittin to Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), who has so far resisted a renewed suspension of the debt brake and the red pen want to start. “To do nothing would also not be wise in a foreign policy sense. The fact that we are now seeing a move away from the sanctions policy in many countries, almost an aggressive rejection of the sanctions, has to do with the fact that people feel left alone with the consequences of this history,” emphasized Trittin. “And that’s why the Chancellor’s sentence is also correct: You’ll never walk alone”. But that now has to be backed up with content.”
Trittin emphasized that if one cannot agree, then stick to what was agreed. “And we have agreed that we will not raise taxes. We have also agreed that we will phase out nuclear energy. That is the agreed basis. And especially in difficult times, I always advise: We stick to what we have agreed.”
Should his party speak out in favor of longer lifetimes for nuclear power plants, a Green party conference would be needed if necessary, said the former Federal Environment Minister. “If you seriously want to change the Atomic Energy Act, that won’t work without a party conference,” Trittin told the Tagesspiegel .”
Trittin clearly opposed longer running times: “A stretching operation is also a running time extension. For this we have to change the Atomic Energy Act. And we won’t touch that, even if the FDP then hopes to negotiate everything possible with the Union,” said Trittin. “When I read now that we should finally commit to nuclear energy, or that Robert Habeck would be eligible for chancellor if he said goodbye to the nuclear phase-out. Yes, where do we live? […] So sometimes the summer slump gives birth to strange blossoms.” Trittin spoke of a campaign and demanded that the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) prefer to promote energy saving. “If so, then we have a regional problem, in Bavaria. And I say to the Bavarians: You can do a lot there, especially save electricity.” A study on electricity consumption in Germany has shown that most of the cities with the greatest waste of electricity are in Bavaria.
“In a crisis, a lot has to be put to the test,” says Trittin. “For example, that the Bavarian Alps are snowed with snow cannons in winter.” Bavaria has a gigantic power-saving potential that is far above what Isar 2 could deliver It would be a major task for the Bavarian state government to leverage this potential for Germany: “There are many pragmatic solutions, all of which are better than operating nuclear power plants whose electricity is ultimately exported to France because their reactors are decrepit.”
