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The CSU is now the driving force of German climate policy, at least in its own opinion. It is undisputed that Markus Söder and his Christsozialen were the first of the three GroKo parties to adopt a "climate strategy" on Saturday. In it, many demands are made in order to finally move forward on this issue and yet to achieve Germany's goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On 20 September, the so-called Climate Cabinet of the Grand Coalition wants to agree on appropriate steps.
Only: What will cost your own proposals, is in the 16-page paper of the CSU read nothing. After all, Söder said at the presentation of the concept, it was "already tens of billions, which will be there".
A much higher sum for the necessary climate investments has estimated a few weeks ago Ralph Brinkhaus, the head of the Union parliamentary group. The CDU politician spoke to the "Rheinische Post" of "several hundred billion euros in the next ten years".
There is no longer any disagreement between the GroKo partners on the size of the climate policy emergency. "Climate change is no longer just an abstract danger of the future, but a concrete change today," says the paper of the CSU. "We have only a few years left to have a chance in the fight against climate change."
The problem is, you suddenly think big - but you do not dare to take the next step. The so-called black zero, ie households without new debts, will no longer be sustainable in view of the billions invested. Achieving the black and green zero simultaneously, as CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and other leading Union politicians claim, can not be achieved. This is even noticeable to some in their own ranks.
Scholz also sticks to the black zero
Even vice-chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who pulls these days as a campaigner for the SPD chairman's post by the Republic, so far does not want to say goodbye to the goal of the black zero: If he presents the draft of his balanced budget for 2020 in the Bundestag on Tuesday, he succeeds this only because the costs for the decisions of the Climate Cabinet are missing.
Scholz should finally have the courage to put the black zero on the files. He has proven that Social Democrats can handle money - so you would probably buy the Minister of Finance so much, if Scholz now says: It will only go with new debt.
The debt brake laid down in the Basic Law would not necessarily have to be touched, as Green Party chief Robert Habeck, for example, demands. It grants new credits of 0.35 percent of gross domestic product each year. That would be a start.
In fact, the Union has more to lose because in recent years, black-and-white has been pretty much the last thing left to the CDU and CSU ideological. But the Swabian housewife, to whom it has been called, would prefer honest bills certainly uncovered checks. After all, it's not something that Union politicians are suddenly proposing to save black zeal: citizens' bonds for climate protection, which the state will use to supplement its money in times of negative interest rates.
Lending gets the state but currently thrown back anyway. No, that's why the Swabian housewife would say: then rather debt-financed investments, so that my grandchildren will leave a livable world.
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