The traffic light coalition still has a good year of government ahead of it – if the alliance does not collapse before the end of the legislative period. However, the climate protection minister already sees the coalition at the end of its tether when it comes to his core issue. The FDP reacted with biting derision.
Robert Habeck, who calls himself Minister for Economic Affairs AND Climate Protection, sees the traffic light coalition as having reached the end of its rope when it comes to climate protection. This is the only way to understand a comment that Habeck made at an event at the weekend. Specifically, Habeck was cautiously critical of the climate protection measures taken so far by the FDP and its transport minister. And then, according to “Spiegel”, he said the following sentence about climate protection at the “Festival of Democracy” in Berlin: “I would say that not much more will happen in this legislative period.”
It is a politically explosive sentence, as climate protection is the core issue of the Greens and, one would think, should also be one of the most important policy areas for the Green climate protection minister.
But now, more than a year before the end of the legislative period, Habeck has clearly lost his momentum. When asked whether Habeck really means this seriously, his ministry does not deny the minister’s obviously pessimistic attitude. “In essence,” Habeck was concerned with “the major legislative projects.” The federal government has “already achieved a lot” in climate protection during this legislative period. The main projects have already been launched, are already in force or are being implemented. Now it is “about consistent implementation in all areas.”
Habeck’s climate protection brake must be a painful blow for many of his party colleagues. But how do you react when your own minister and possible candidate for chancellor says something like that? The fact that the Greens are uncomfortable with this topic is shown by the fact that the party leadership did not respond to corresponding inquiries from FOCUS online.
And the faction’s response is also telling. Instead of responding to Habeck’s statement, the Green faction’s deputy Julia Verlinden prefers to open up a different battlefield and attack the FDP’s transport minister, Volker Wissing. Habeck is right “when he calls for the consistent implementation of all climate protection measures agreed in the coalition and states that climate protection in the transport sector has not progressed sufficiently,” Julia Verlinden told FOCUS online.
The massive climate protection gap in this sector shows that Wissing “urgently needs to step up his efforts”. And he continued: “As a coalition, we have agreed on numerous points that the transport minister still has to implement.” The finance minister, also from the FDP, also has a “duty to implement the coalition’s agreements”.
The FDP, the political partner of the traffic light coalition, reacted with biting scorn: “It is not without a certain irony that the Green Vice Chancellor of all people is declaring the traffic light coalition’s climate protection to be over,” said FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki to FOCUS online. “Because the truth is that Germany could be in a better position in terms of climate protection without the Greens in government. Just think of the nuclear phase-out, which we were unfortunately only able to delay against the Greens, or Habeck’s shambles called the Building Energy Act.”