Friday April 30th 2021
“Next Government Mortgage”
Merz warns of a sudden climate change
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After the failure for the climate law in Karlsruhe, the SPD blames the Union and promises a quick new edition. Friedrich Merz clearly sees the mammoth task in the next government. The CDU economic expert also criticizes the coalition partner’s attacks.
The CDU economic expert Friedrich Merz has spoken out against a political snap shot as a reaction to the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on the Climate Protection Act. “Economy and ecology now need a better and then really sustainable coordination with each other,” wrote Merz in his newsletter. “At the same time, a legislative hasty shot is prohibited.” The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court and its consequences require careful analysis and a constitutional solution in the course of the next year.
The Karlsruhe judges had obliged the legislature to regulate the reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions for the period after 2030 in more detail by the end of next year. It is about the Climate Protection Act, which stipulates permissible annual emissions for areas such as the energy sector, industry, transport and agriculture up to 2030.
Constitutional complaints from several climate protectors were in part successful. According to government spokesman Steffen Seibert, the federal government is striving for a swift adaptation of the climate protection law.
“Solve with wisdom and a sense of proportion”
Merz, who should be responsible for economic and financial issues in the team of Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, wrote in his “MerzMail # 42” that if climate change jeopardizes the freedom and property of future generations, as Karlsruhe determined, “must” already more can be done today to protect our climate “. The deadline until the end of 2022 is not much in view of the long discussions that took place in the run-up to the Climate Protection Act until the end of 2019. “The incumbent federal government leaves the next federal government with a big task (not to say: a heavy mortgage) that must be solved with wisdom and a sense of proportion.”
In addition to climate issues, Merz drew a broader arc on the subject of sustainability. Even if future freedom and future property should be better protected from an ecological point of view, “then the public finances and future pension provision of the young generation deserve an equally fundamental and constitutionally new measurement”. Karlsruhe opens up new options for action – not only in environmental protection, he wrote.
Merz emphasized that the constitutional court’s decision affects the entire federal government, not just parts of it. Environment Minister Svenja Schulze is responsible for the climate protection law. No constitutional concerns have come to light from her. The same applies to the SPD-led Ministry of Justice, which checks the constitutional conformity of every law together with the Ministry of the Interior. “As long as the Union and the SPD work together in one government, the SPD and its candidate for chancellor cannot be blamed,” Merz wrote. Several SPD politicians had previously blamed the Minister for Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier for the failure of the climate law.
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