[Skybird]

I have always considered the German Minister for Morals, Self-Pity and Energy Pricing to be a phony and a sentimentalist, a very pathetic little sausage, and I have often said so. The way he himself continues to dismantle his claim to seriousness probably proves me right. As a children's book author, he knows how to babble infantilely, and the German morons feel taken along with him, and they fall servilely and obediently in line to his commands. He has no idea about correct political craft - and always shifts the responsibility for his mistakes to others, and then he steals even more pity for himself, while he shimmies from one self-made desasster to the next. And always with a suffering, pitying facial expression and tone of voice that say that poor little Robert can't help any of this. It is disgusting. Pity for the German people is misplaced; they not only put up with it, but would even prefer to have Habeck as chancellor. Anyone who ticks like this deserves what Habeck is getting him into.



The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:

Robert Habeck's crisis is self-inflicted

First the German Minister of Economics claims that the country has no electricity problem, then his staff botches the planned gas levy: the high-flyer in the cabinet needs to close his knowledge gaps as soon as possible.

If Germans could elect their chancellor directly, a relative majority would vote for Robert Habeck. Certainly, at 26 percent, it would not be an overwhelming majority, and the figures are still from mid-August. Nevertheless, it is remarkable when, in the midst of an energy crisis, the politician who enjoys the greatest trust is the one who, in his own words, has "a responsibility for energy security in Germany" as minister for the economy and climate protection. This responsibility, says Habeck, "must be faced."

At present, the Green must face up to the mistakes that are being made in his ministry. And so far, he is hardly meeting this challenge. The high-flyer is turning into an underachiever.

Habeck wants to prevent free riding

At the open house in his ministry a week ago, Habeck was still singing the praises of the many experts and the "great people" with whom he was allowed to work. That's where the expertise sits, in the ministry's offices, "they do the core work here." Habeck downgraded his own role to that of an interpreter who publicly explains "what is decided there.

And now this: Neither the coalition partners of the SPD and FDP, nor the opposition parties, nor economists have a good word to say about the economics minister's planned "gas levy. As the minister contritely admitted, this is now to be quickly improved, preferably as early as this week at the cabinet meeting. Free riders, as Habeck calls them, i.e. energy companies that earn splendidly and do not need any help, are to be excluded from support.

A competent policy would have recognized and prevented these loopholes in time. In fact, the levy, in which all German gas customers are to participate from October at 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour, is a lex Uniper. The primary aim is to prevent the Finnish group from collapsing and thus the German gas market from imploding.

A decree for Uniper

This shift of responsibility from the company to all consumers is already delicate, especially since research by a business magazine has substantiated the suspicion that Uniper had a hand in writing the regulation. Habeck himself says ambiguously that the levy was "probably decided that way". Does he mean the SPD and FDP, who, despite all the subsequent outrage, supported the decision in the cabinet? Does he mean the "great people" in the ministry or the influence of Uniper? Either way, Habeck appears to be a man who is letting things slip.

The Green also doesn't cut a good figure when it comes to the two energy-saving ordinances drafted by his house; the first ordinance takes effect on September 1. Among other things, it contains a ban on illuminating buildings and monuments from the outside. Also, illuminated advertising installations may only be operated from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. As recently as July, Habeck had claimed that Germany had a heating problem, but not an electricity problem. Even then it was foreseeable that the rapidly rising gas prices would also force up the cost of electricity.

Habeck's defiantly advocated Green Party line that the era of nuclear power plants is over and that at most a minimally extended remaining operating life is conceivable seems out of date. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also talks like this. Worldwide, however, nuclear power is doing well.

Scholz and his cabinet are floundering

Consequently, former Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer of the CSU is now calling not only for the three still-active nuclear power plants to be kept running, but also for three more to be reactivated and three new ones to be built. And the CDU's Council of Economic Advisors is arguing that all coal-fired and nuclear power plants that can be operated should be connected to the grid, since their costs are lower than those of gas-fired power plants. Habeck suddenly appears to be an immovable ideologue.

The doctor of humanities and former children's book author can explain crises wonderfully, even those that he himself has brought about. In the future, however, it will be important to prevent crises. Otherwise, Berlin's "traffic lights" may be history even faster than nuclear power in Germany.
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Uniper is the center of energy supply in Germany, in a sense the black hole at the center of the galaxy. However, it is majority-owned by the Finnish state via a subsidiary.