Workshop discussion in Berlin: The climate dilemma of the CDU

Anyone who asks himself on this Tuesday morning in the CDU headquarters, why just Wolfgang Schäuble sets the prelude impulse for climate-workshop talk of his party, knows after a few sentences the answer: Because he with his mixture of political experience, intellectual gusto and direct Baden Speech can still beat rhetorical sparks on any topic.

Schäuble begins with a quotation from the former CDU Secretary General Peter Hintze. He said 25 years ago: "With ecology we will not win the next federal election - without ecology we will lose them." As a reminder: Schäuble, at that time head of the Union parliamentary group, fought from 1995 for the introduction of an eco tax, but could not prevail in his own party and especially against the CSU.

A quarter of a century later, it is no longer just about the next elections and the strong Greens, as Schäuble knows in the light of the climate change that he experienced at the age of 76, but above all about the cause itself.

Michael Kappeler / dpa

CDU-old leader Schäuble, party leader Kramp-Karrenbauer: Time is short

Schäuble, meanwhile President of the Bundestag, has occupied almost all important political functions except for the office of chancellor and head of state in his long career. "I have always been involved with most of the stupidities of the Union over the past 40 years," he says. Schäuble now urgently appeals to the CDU and CSU to dare something in terms of climate policy. "Dear people, that can not be more," he says in his own ranks in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus. Climate protection can not be had for free, you have to tell the citizens honestly, "but no climate protection is more expensive." Even prohibitions are not a taboo for him, after all, borders and rules are an integral part of the social market economy.

But how far the Union will really trust in the end is also open at the end of the workshop discussion.

The workshop talk, organized in this kind of party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer earlier this year on the topic of migration, namely, should only provide space for debates with experts and scientists, the speakers emphasize again and again on this day - decisions are elsewhere and later caught.

Union is under time pressure

It is about time: By 20 September, on which the Climate Cabinet of the Grand Coalition to make appropriate decisions must first CDU and CSU have agreed on a package of measures - and then reach an agreement with the Social Democrats again. The SPD is now powerful pressure, Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained the topic in the SPIEGEL interview just to the coalition question and called "a big hit".

The core issue is the question of how CO2 emissions should be priced in Germany in the future in order to achieve the climate protection goals - in this regard, the CDU and the CSU are now in agreement. But this need is the concern, as happened in neighboring France with the so-called yellow vests, trigger a violent backlash in parts of the population. The AfD, just pumped up with record results in Saxony and Brandenburg, would love to put themselves at the forefront of those who would be disadvantaged climate policy. Added to this is the requirement that Germany's competitiveness is not harmed.

So that is the threefold dilemma facing the Union: the proposals should be effective, socially responsible and economic. One can say that CDU and CSU already faced simpler challenges.

A CO2 tax now seems off the table, but instead one sets on a kind of national certificates trade, which should then be transferred to European level. This could be rewarded elsewhere ecological behavior (for example, train driving) and the opposite (for example, flying) are punished rather. Reductions in electricity prices and tax incentives for low-emission alternatives are planned; in return for a CO2 price, the green electricity surcharge (EEG) could be phased out.

For weeks sitting Union politicians in different rounds and formations together, there is a joint working group, led by the parliamentary groups Andreas Jung (CDU) and Georg Nüßlein (CSU), at the same time advises internally, at the Christsozialen turn it seems between party leader Markus Söder and the Berlin State Group around Alexander Dobrindt quite different ideas at one point or another.

It's also about personal profiling

As always in politics, it is also about personal profiling: After many years in the Union with climate policy issues had hardly been busy, some now because of the double pressure to act - here the environment, because the prospering Greens - especially in a pose.

On this day, it can be seen from the fact that parallel to the workshop discussion, which is opened in the morning by the secretaries general Paul Ziemiak (CDU) and Markus flower (CSU), the Christian Social members of parliament ask for an exam, on which their chairman Dobrindt already finished Climate protection concept presented.

At the workshop talk, the CDU head office is now discussing six working groups in camera without any publicity. Naturally, it deals with the different possibilities of pricing and mobility issues, but also with climate policy contexts in the construction and housing sector or challenges for agriculture and forestry , "Since you have really penetrated deeply into the details," says a CDU member of parliament sitting in a working group.

That also seems to have impressed party leader Kramp-Karrenbauer, who summarizes the results at the end of the evening. But she also warns not to get lost in details. Now you have to "take the first step," says Kramp-Karrenbauer.

In the internal debates and also with the CSU there are still some obstacles to overcome before it goes into the coalition-internal agreement, says the CDU boss. But then Kramp-Karrenbauer even floats the big compromise: she wants a national climate consensus. After an agreement in the Cabinet, one would invite all political actors from federal and state governments to reach this consensus as quickly as possible.

But until then it is still a very long way from today's perspective.