In the opinion of the activists who have traveled to Lützerath, the fight for the climate will obviously be decided. Two parliamentarians from the Greens also put themselves in the limelight on site. “Green double standards” is now the accusation.
With 523 yes to 92 no votes late in the evening of December 1, the German Bundestag approved the traffic light coalition’s draft law to “accelerate the phase-out of lignite in the Rhenish mining area”. None of the 118 members of the Green Group voted against it.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) and his party friend Mona Neubaur, the deputy prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, had previously negotiated a compromise with the energy company RWE. This provides for an early phase-out of lignite for the year 2030. At the same time, Lützerath is to give way to the coal excavator.
The green member of the Bundestag Nyke Slawik now sent a tweet that shows her right on the edge of the demolition line and caused a lot of excitement. The 29-year-old commented: “I’ve become estranged. Alienated by how some are defending the eviction in Lützerath and the deal with RWE.”
A broadside against Habeck? He already reprimanded the protests in the “Heute Journal” on Wednesday evening and repeated: The place was the wrong symbol for him. However, Slawik thinks: “The evictions should be stopped. Solutions should now be sought as to how the coal can remain in the ground under Lützerath.”
She continues: “Arguments à la ‘courts have decided that RWE has every right to dig up’ are a declaration of servitude to this group. We are the legislator. We make the laws on the basis of which RWE operates.”
As happened on December 1st.
“Green double standards at the limit,” says CSU General Secretary Martin Huber. “Lützerath has to go because the Greens decided it themselves. “They preferred to opt for dirty coal instead of clean nuclear energy,” says Huber to FOCUS online. “To rail against the courts and the police now is shabby.”
“The eviction of Lützerath is not easy for us Greens, but of course we respect the case law,” emphasizes Irene Mihalic, First Parliamentary Secretary of the Greens parliamentary group in the Bundestag, to FOCUS online. And further: “Nevertheless, I am glad that we are bringing forward the phase-out of coal in the Rhenish mining area by eight years to 2030 and were able to save the five villages of Keyenberg, Kuckum, Oberwestrich, Unterwestrich and Berverath.”
Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU), Chairman of the Economic Committee in the Bundestag, made it clear to FOCUS online: “The fact that MPs from the Greens in Lützerath are demonstrating against their own decisions illustrates the energy-political schizophrenia of the Greens. And if you distance yourself from your own decisions, then you should certainly distance yourself from the violent criminals on site.”
In addition to Slawik, her parliamentary colleague Kathrin Henneberger is also on site. As a “parliamentary observation”, as she puts it. Your live interview in the ARD lunchtime magazine on Thursday was rather stammered, followed by breaks. Can happen.
Henneberger was her parliamentary group’s chief negotiator for the law, which was passed with a large majority on December 1st. To be fair, it must be said that the 35-year-old spoke out against the eviction of Lützerath in the late evening debate and called for a moratorium with the aim of preserving the place. She was the only one in her group to abstain from the vote.
The energy policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Michael Kruse, says to FOCUS online: “The fact that green members of the Bundestag are demonstrating against the digging out of Lützerath is blatant double standards.”
And further: “We see here the result of political facts that were created by the responsible ministers of the Greens in the federal government and in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.”
The Hamburg member of the Bundestag suggests: “Instead, we should take the big protests as an opportunity to re-discuss the phase-out sequence for nuclear and coal power,” said Kruse.
As a transitional technology, nuclear power could help in the short term to drastically reduce German CO2 emissions and, above all, to take the dirty lignite off the grid more quickly.
“If even Greta Thunberg does not understand the German phase-out of nuclear power at this point in time, there is an urgent need for discussion,” explains Kruse. In this way, Germany could take a big step towards affordable, climate-friendly and secure energy supply in 2023.
It will be interesting to see what Greta says in Lützerath.
