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In order to achieve the climate goals, Germany must act, the current steps are considered by scientists to be inadequate. But about the question of how is argued violently - even within the Union of the Federal Government. Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer has now sharply criticized the climate plans from Berlin in an interview.
"I feel the climate change package in many places as a national discrimination," said the CDU politician to the newspapers of the Funke media group. "We should stick to the European framework and create no additional regulation in Germany." In the EU it is forbidden to discriminate against citizens of other Member States. That was the reason why the car toll had failed. "National discrimination is not forbidden, but it is just as wrong."
"If the SPD wants to leave the GroKo, it should do it"
The grand coalition of the CDU, CSU and SPD in Berlin is planning numerous measures in the climate package in order to achieve its 2030 climate goals. These include, among other things, a higher aviation tax and a price for CO2 emissions from transport and heating. The criticism of the plans is sometimes fierce. A study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) had found out, for example, that poorer households in particular would be burdened by the government plans.
Kretschmer also turned against many of the additional planned rules. For example, there is already a European trade in CO2 certificates - "why are we still doing a national one?" He asked in the interview. The higher aviation tax unilaterally increased the travel of German airports. "And does the coal exit really have to happen so fast that we endanger security of supply?"
With regard to the Federal Government, Kretschmer said that it was not the task of the Union to keep the SPD in the coalition. "I would say that the CDU should not leave the coalition because we have responsibility for this country, but if the SPD wants to go, then it should do it, and voters will vote for it."