Steffen
Kotré
Renewable
Energy Law
German Bundestag, May 6, 2020, Plenarprotokoll
19/157, pp. 19498-19499
[Steffen
Kotré is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern
German state of Brandenburg. He is an engineer and is the AfD's energy policy spokesman in the Bundestag. He
here responds to a draft law proposed by the government to amend the Renewable
Energy Law (EEG).]
Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
Herr Dr. Lenz, 20 years of the EEG is, I believe, no occasion to
celebrate.
Andreas Lenz
(CDU/CSU): Still!
Because it still is not grown up. It cannot run on its own.
An untold sum of subventions is required. With the EEG, we have
the purchase prices determined by the state, we have shutdown plants, we have
rising consumer prices and we have a need for previously produced electricity –
with which a blackout can be prevented only with difficulty.
Timon Gremmels
(SPD): The price of electricity is decreasing!
In
addition, we have a situation in which we must produce more electricity and
also must have more output capacity because the quality is simply inadequate.
And
that taken together is a planned economy, ladies and gentlemen. Which we had
once already in the DDR [East Germany]. It failed there and it will fail here
in this situation.
That
is not to gainsay if citizens wish to get together to produce energy. Yet these
citizens’ energy collectives are highly subsidized and plainly live off tax
money.
Timon
Gremmels (SPD): No, from the assessment! That is rubbish!
They live at the cost of us all. That is plainly unsozial. The average citizens cannot
make these luxury investments. If the state is encouraging the citizens to form
these collective energy farms [Energiekolchosen], then we have already long
since arrived at the scarcity economy.
The
energy transformation is off course. For example, we require about ten power
plants which must maintain their full capacity and employment, on stand-by or
out of service and thus may not be producing, only because
the renewable energy cannot keep the network stable. All of that is an
unnecessry cost, apart from the blackout danger. The Federal government has
long since taken leave of the threefold goal of security of supply, economy and
care for the environment.
Timon Gremmels
(SPD): You indeed ought to know!
Perhaps once more a reminder: Affordable energy makes for
successful states. Yet Germany uinfortunately has long since taken leave of
that path.
Until April of this year, for 170 long hours, we had to pay
foreign countries to take our electricity. The cost: 1.1 billion euros. 100
million so that the foreign countries might take the electricity, 1 billion
euros which we have sunk into the production of this electricity. That is
actually nothing other than a gigantic redistribution program, to the burden of
the citizens and plainly to the burden of the producers [Leistungsträger] of our country.
If the Greens now require that the EEG assessment be reduced, that
is really a piece
of work.That is plain populism of the most negative sort!
of work.That is plain populism of the most negative sort!
Timon Gremmels (SPD): You sure know what’s
what with populism!
There speaks the expert!
There speaks the expert!
Since you of the Greens are certainly responsible for high energy
prices and for the EEG assessment and its high price. What actually happens
then when the EEG assessment is cut? Then will cash be demanded of the
electricity customer, not as electricity customer but as taxpayer. Thus nothing
gets by: Left pocket, right pocket.
Julia Verlinden
(Greens): What then do you now want?
That will simply be wiped away. That is not to be looked into.
We now stand before quite different problems. The hysterical
Corona measures are leading to economic harm. The infrastructure quality
declines. The Mittelstand, the middle
class, likewise are shrinking. It becomes ever more clear: We are encountering
entirely different problems and should conserve our money. The citizen, the skilled
worker and the businessman need every euro to recover and they simply have no guaranteed
income,
Timon Gremmels
(SPD): Yet the skilled workers install the photovoltaic cells!
like the producers of wind electricity with their compensatory
feedings.
No, our country requires future-oriented, capable energy concepts,
Timon Gremmels
(SPD): Exactly!
Steffi Lemke
(Greens): Then resign!
economic, environmental friendly and of secure supply.
Thereby is, in my opinion, the more secure, modern nuclear energy.
50 nuclear power plants under construction worldwide send a clear message.
Timon Gremmels
(SPD): Yet there are no subventions!
Let us think realistically. Let us put our prejudices aside!
Nuclear energy may secure our well-being. Nuclear energy makes possible a cleaner
environment for our children.
Steffi Lemke
(Greens): Have you been to Chernobyl?
In this sense: Let’s leave these environmentally dangerous wind
energy investments be! They are a danger to man and animal! Reality instead of
hysteria!
Many thanks.
Steffi Lemke
(Greens): “The Earth is flat” occurs to me!
Timon Gremmels
(SPD): Get another plate!
[Translated by Todd Martin]
