Gas allocation: Robert Habeck, the disenchanted

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Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) presenting the gas surcharge, August 15, 2022

Photo: Britta Pedersen / dpa

If anyone was trusted to lead the Germans through the difficult autumn, it was Robert Habeck, the Green Economics Minister, the chancellor of hearts.

Olaf Scholz is silent, Christian Lindner is getting married, but you can rely on Habeck, the likeable workhorse.

If necessary, he only eats muesli and sleeps next to the desk to save the Germans.

That was the picture.

As a reward, he was allowed to top the list of the most popular politicians and constantly read love letters disguised as editorials in the press.

Journalists praised his communication, saying he was so good at explaining how difficult times are getting.

"The truth-teller" called him the "time" .

Habeck's popularity ratings are still high, but I haven't read love letters in the press for a long time.

In the past few days he was booed at a citizens' dialogue in Bayreuth.

Fortune teller – that suddenly sounds different, it sounds more like reading tea leaves than the truth.

Energy prices are rising, the cuts that have been approved so far are expiring, there are no new ones, and with them the resentment in the country is growing.

According to research group Wahlen, 58 percent of respondents in a new poll say the government is doing too little to relieve people.

Suddenly even the chancellor of hearts seems overwhelmed.

When you see him struggling to explain his house's gas surcharge and chaotic traffic light policy, you can see that his rhetoric has its limits too.

And one wonders if he doubts what the government is fabricating and if it's all right.

That was Habeck's strength, that he included the citizens in his doubts, but there is no longer any sign of that.

One asks whether he remembers his own predictions now that he is warning of the collapse of the German energy supply.

It was in February, one day before the Russians attacked Ukraine again, after the Nord Stream 2 pipeline had stopped, when Robert Habeck was asked on Deutschlandfunk whether Germany could do without Russian gas.

"Yes, it can," Habeck said at the time.

He restricted that it would first drive up the price, which had to be compensated for.

"But there is a chance that Germany will get enough gas and enough raw materials beyond Russian gas..."

That was perhaps optimistic at the time, less friendly voices would say: daring, clueless, spooky.

After all, the German Economics Minister should have known that Germany, at 55 percent, is more dependent on Russian gas than almost any other European country.

The economy regarded the low prices as a “location factor”, as the boss of the special film manufacturer Orafal recently said.

Even after 2014, after the invasion of Crimea, Nord Stream 2 was pushed ahead, the grand coalition fixed itself on Russia as the most important energy supplier and neglected the expansion of renewables.

There is certainly something tragic about the fact that Habeck, who was not responsible for this policy, now has to clean up the drastic consequences.

But his outrage at the fact that Russia is using the gas as a weapon of war also seems played.

It is not surprising that a country that is being sanctioned does not react with treaty loyalty.

How to replace 55 percent within a few months?

Germany simply cannot do without Russian gas as easily as Habeck imagined without major collapses occurring.

The company from Oranienburg just mentioned, 1100 employees, world market leader, needs as much gas per day as a small town.

What happens next when there is no more gas: unclear.

Shower tips from the Economics Minister are only of limited help.

And what Habeck said on Monday, that the gas levy is the "fairest" of all solutions, is simply not true either: Why should only half of Germans - the gas customers - pay for the energy policies of the governments of Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel that have failed for decades?

So gas customers who often have no choice in apartment buildings with which fuel to heat?

Not only private individuals depend on the gas supply, but also the chemical industry, steel industry and systemically important institutions such as hospitals.

A failure would hit everyone hard.

Why should only gas customers be responsible?

And how can it be that the energy market is on the brink of collapse, as Habeck claims, when energy companies like RWE and Shell are making record profits?

So far, twelve companies have applied for aid, most notably Uniper, Germany's largest gas importer, which was almost completely dependent on Russian supplies and lost billions through the end of Nord Stream 2.

In the broadest sense, one can say that the policies of Schröder and Merkel ruined Uniper, the citizens are allowed to pay.

The principle is already familiar from the financial crisis: Profits are privatized, losses are borne by everyone.

The bitter thing is that the debate about the gas levy is only a prelude to the further price increases and additional payments that are threatened in the coming weeks.

It's like waiting for a storm, a storm.

And you don't get the feeling that the traffic light is weatherproof.

It seems more as if one is constantly witnessing electrical short circuits in the face of the conflicting proposals overflowing, in order to stay with the traffic light image.

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Sabine Rennefanz

Finally, women and children: How crises challenge social justice

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On Thursday, the federal government announced that the government would reduce VAT on gas from 19 to 7 percent.

This is intended to compensate for the additional costs for the gas surcharge.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he expects companies to pass the reduction on to customers.

Wait a minute, so you create a new tax, the gas surcharge, only to collect it with a discount?

Wouldn't it have been easier to pay the costs of rescuing Uniper and Co. directly from the tax coffers?

Only the Germans would probably come up with such bureaucracy monsters.

And of course it is politically piquant: Scholz, the SPD politician, corrects the Green politician Habeck.

When Habeck explained the gas levy on Monday, he said: "We know that we have to live and work with many unreasonable demands, but we also know why we're doing this." Do we really know that?

Do the people who have four-digit additional payments from their landlords in their mailbox these days know that?

The ones protesting in Neuruppin?

Does the SPD finance minister in Brandenburg, who openly questions the sanctions against Russia, know?

The cracks are showing up everywhere, they can no longer be covered up with nice words.