Is there a gas emergency?
Lanz round discusses sensitive energy scenario: "Nobody wants that"
Created: 06/22/2022, 10:26 am
Markus Lanz discusses with his guests on June 21, 2022 on ZDF.
© Cornelia Lehmann/ZDF
Russian President Putin uses gas supplies as a weapon in the Ukraine war.
The "Markus Lanz" group discusses the consequences that this could have for Germany.
Hamburg – On Tuesday evening, the “Markus Lanz” group, together with the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil (SPD), entered the latest reporting in the
world
, which said that the declaration of the second stage of the gas emergency plan was imminent.
Weil confirms this indirectly, because he explains soberly what the industry could face: “Basically, this means that the companies in question have to report to the Federal Network Agency in more detail about the actual supply situation – how much gas they get, how it looks like in the memories etc."
Markus Lanz (ZDF): Russia is exerting pressure with gas deliveries
However, the energy industry companies are still “master of the situation,” says Weil, and a conceivable third stage envisages direct state intervention.
Talk show host Markus Lanz then asks the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony who informed him about it, but the politician dismisses it: "It hasn't been confirmed at all, so I don't have to inform anyone about it." Because he says he is "only" Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Lanz has to ask Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) whether the second stage of the emergency plan is coming and what exactly it entails.
The SPD man claims to know nothing concrete, but assumes "that the Federal Ministry of Economics is planning different scenarios - and that's absolutely right."
"Assume that this will come in five to ten days," quotes
Welt
journalist Robin Alexander as Robert Habeck.
With these words, the Vice Chancellor is said to have addressed the energy industry.
That's not surprising, Alexander says, given that Russia is curbing gas supplies to Germany.
For the economist Monika Schnitzer it is therefore "great luck" that the Federal Republic has been able to obtain gas from Russia at all in the previous three months of the Ukraine war.
She appeals to companies and private households to use energy as efficiently as possible and fears that Russia will stop supplying gas altogether.
Gas shortage debate at "Markus Lanz" - SPD man Weil: "Nobody wants to have such a situation!"
If this happens and there is a gas shortage, Weil assumes that the effects will vary greatly from region to region: "We may experience the situation that some regions already have an energy shortage, while others say: the supply is still guaranteed here. In order to be able to minimize gas-fired power generation, the current situation requires the extension of coal operations, adds Weil.
Lower Saxony's Prime Minister hardly likes to think of a situation in which the state would have to decide which companies can continue to purchase gas and which not: "Nobody wants to have such a situation!"
"Markus Lanz" - these were his guests on June 21:
Stephan Weil (SPD)
– politician
Monika Schnitzer
– economist
Robin Alexander
– Journalist
Johannes Hano
– journalist
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Weil didn't know anything about the fact that the world's largest gas storage facility in Rehden, Lower Saxony, was not systematically filled by Russia, but from his point of view the process shows: "It is an example of the fact that infrastructure must remain under national control." The problem awareness of the procedure of Russian President Vladimir Putin was not present "in the entirety of German politics" at the time of the sale of the Rehden gas storage facility in 2015.
Because the host can't get hold of the SPD politician properly, Alexander Weil confronts him with sharp criticism.
Weil made a trip to Russia in 2015 and while Alexei Navalny was lying poisoned in the Berlin Charité, Weil publicly rejected Russia sanctions.
"You can believe that I have asked myself plenty of the questions you are asking me and I also have a self-critical position on them," Weil replies, adding that the Ukraine war left its mark on him.
Nevertheless, at that time, with the exception of the Greens, a different Russia policy was being pursued across party lines.
This turned out to be wrong, says Weil today: "We made the mistake of not adding one and one and one together."
"Markus Lanz" debate on the Ukraine war and mutual dependencies between Russia and China
"There is a very clear strategic failure in Germany," is the judgment of journalist Johannes Hano, who was switched on from short-term corona isolation.
They didn't want to see what dependencies they were getting into, the same applies to China.
Instead, Germany and the West have made themselves vulnerable to blackmail, even if, as Schnitzer notes, the dependencies are mutual.
For the people of Ukraine, a face-saving peace for Russia is unacceptable, says Hano.
He has just spent five weeks researching in Ukraine and believes that in the long run the West will not be able to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia.
Hano's demand to "bring Russia to its knees" militarily is not only rejected by Alexander.
Weil also vehemently contradicts: “We have a huge interest – and I think that applies to the whole of NATO – that we don't become a party to the war.
Because there is a risk that we would talk about an escalation on a completely different scale.”
"Markus Lanz" - The conclusion of the show
On Tuesday evening, the "Markus Lanz" group spoke about political failures and Germany's dependence on Russia and China, in addition to a possible impending activation of the second stage of the gas emergency plan.
Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) thinks it's right that the federal government is dealing with bottleneck scenarios and is self-critical about the misjudgments in dealing with Russia.
The economist Monika Schnitzer recommends a policy that rewards households and companies for saving energy.
The journalists Robin Alexander and Johannes Hano support the discussion with their points of view.
(Hermann Racke)