The fronts in the coalition dispute over faster green electricity expansion have hardened. Despite marathon negotiations, the Union and the SPD find no compromise. There is still a chance on Thursday.
Berlin (dpa) - The negotiations of the black-red coalition over a minimum distance of 1000 meters between wind turbines and houses have ended without agreement.
Talks led to no result, as the German press agency learned on Wednesday evening from coalition circles, the SPD left the negotiating table. Hopes are now on the conference of the 16 prime ministers that will meet in Berlin this Thursday.
The SPD was accused of a blockade on the Union side. The talks on the energy transition are massively burdened, it said. Now you have to wait for the conference of prime ministers on Thursday. Union and SPD have been negotiating a minimum distance of 1000 meters between wind turbines and residential buildings as part of a package for faster expansion of renewable energies for months.
The Union economic wing in particular is pushing for a 1,000-meter distance from wind turbines to residential buildings in order to increase acceptance for wind farms. These are often very controversial on site. The question of what exactly an opening clause for countries should look like is also controversial.
In the late evening, SPD circles said that it had been made clear in the last round of negotiations that the major issue of the energy transition could only be tackled together with the states. The countries would also need the necessary scope for this. The proposal by Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU), according to which the federal states could have opted expressly for the 1000 meter rule, was "a good basis" for the talks, but was again collected by the Union. Now wait for the meeting of the 16 prime ministers this Thursday.
Wind turbines and solar systems are supposed to provide more climate protection and to replace nuclear power and coal. The Union and the SPD have been arguing about how best to do this for a year and a half. Above all, the expansion of onshore wind power is stalling. There is often violent resistance to wind turbines on site.
At the conference on Thursday, the federal government and the states actually want to decide on a joint paper on the energy transition. The main focus is on how the share of renewable energies in electricity consumption can increase to 65 percent by 2030. It is currently just over 40 percent. So far, long approval procedures should be accelerated. In addition, the question of how electricity remains affordable and how hydrogen can be widely used in the future should also be addressed.
Time is running out for the expansion of renewable energies, because nuclear and coal-fired power plants should go offline for environmental and climate protection in the coming years.
Environmentalists and industry as well as trade unions and the energy sector had increased the pressure on the coalition in unusual mergers. A broad alliance called on Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the 16 country heads to accelerate the expansion of green electricity.
German trade union federation (DGB) as well as several environmental and energy associations demanded not to introduce general rules for the distance from wind turbines to houses. The funding cap for new solar systems had to go because the funding limit had almost been reached and investments and loans were already being held back.
In another letter to the Union and SPD in the Bundestag, the industrial association BDI, the energy union IG BCE, groups like BASF and environmental associations like the WWF, among others, called for more speed in the expansion of wind and solar power.
SPD energy politicians accused the CDU and CSU of linking the lifting of the solar funding cover to the wind gap and thus playing off wind and solar energy against each other.
