Who gets allocated gas when it gets tight? The CDU in the country fears that industry in the southwest could lose out in an emergency. Conditions like those in the "Wild West" threatened.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - The CDU parliamentary group has warned that the Baden-Württemberg economy would be disadvantaged in the event of a gas shortage. The energy policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group, Raimund Haser, accused the federal government and the Federal Network Agency of being too hesitant to prepare for a crisis situation in which no more Russian gas would flow to Germany. "If this unregulated situation continues for a long time, Baden-Württemberg will be the big loser in the gas emergency plan because we live at the end of the line and our economy is heavily dependent on gas," he told the German Press Agency in Stuttgart. He called on the green-black government in the country to "speak up more in the fight for energy supply, because for us in the southwest it's about everything".
If there is no structure for the shutdown, "it will soon be like in the Wild West," warned Haser. "I don't believe that steelmakers in the Ruhr area will be left behind to allow cement works to run in the southwest." The crisis shows how little importance Baden-Württemberg has in the traffic light federal government. "A chancellor from Hamburg and an economics minister from Schleswig-Holstein don't think about the cement works in the Swabian Jura or the foundry in the Black Forest," said the CDU man, alluding to Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Robert Habeck (Greens).
Haser went on to say: "It's nice that we now know how long the Economics Minister is taking a shower." What is needed now, however, is a crisis-proof and sustainable energy policy. In view of the significantly reduced gas supplies from Russia, the federal government declared the alarm level almost two weeks ago. The emergency plan has three levels: The alarm level now declared is the second. The third would be the emergency level. It is feared that after the maintenance of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in mid-July, no more Russian gas will flow through this pipeline and that the situation in Germany will continue to deteriorate.
A week ago, the state CDU presented a ten-point plan on how to prepare for an energy crisis. Haser played a leading role in developing this. Among other things, the Union is pushing for slightly longer operating times for nuclear power plants in Germany. In addition, the CDU called for an alarm plan with replacement gas purchases, savings measures and alternatives to gas supply.
Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) called on Tuesday for a joint campaign by the federal, state and local governments, in which concrete proposals had to be made quickly on where industry and households could save energy. Kretschmann has already rejected the CDU's demand for longer operating times for nuclear power plants. He argues that there will be a gas shortage in winter and not a shortage of electricity. In addition, they do not want to make any compromises when it comes to safety, because the Neckarwestheim 2 kiln (Heilbronn district) was last checked in 2009 - knowing that it would go offline at the end of 2022 anyway.
