German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/182, 23650-23651.
Right honorable Frau President. My ladies and gentlemen colleagues. Dear Herr State Minister. Right honorable Herr State Secretary. My ladies and gentlemen of the Union.
Herr State Minister, there is no overall social consensus for a withdrawal from coal. That is an illusion. That is a fairy tale. And it hurts me so: The Union tells these tales in tune with the left-greens.
This coal withdrawal is a political project by-passing the people, primarily the people in the eastern German coal regions. The structural change, other than in the Ruhr, is not organic, not a result of technological progress, but solely a result of political intent. And the worst of it is: You of the Federal government have no concept. You come with the wrecking ball and then leave the people standing in front of the dump.
Johannes Ardt (SPD): Och!
The Ampel would even most preferably move up the withdrawal to 2030. What you do here is irresponsible, dear Federal government. The people in the region need security, and not fear of the future.
The decision for a coal withdrawal was a fatal failure. We need the coal, at least until we again have extensive gas- and, before all, nuclear-power plants. Look for once at how many coal power plants were in the network at the end of 2020, before the final atomic exit. There were 74. And today? Today it is 130. And in 2022 were just three nuclear power plants in the network. Your withdrawal from nuclear power made Germany still more dependent on coal, and now even that shall go. You transform Germany back into the Stone Age.
In terms of climate technology, the withdrawal is completely superfluous. The total output from the German coal power plants contributed about 40 gigawatts. That is clearly less than China alone in the year 2023 started in new coal power capacity. Germany, with this government, is for no one in this world a model – on the contrary: The other countries just laugh over this energy nonsense.
To the Union’s motions. Some of it, what is in the motions, – independent of the coal withdrawal – is, ja, reasonable; for example, the construction of the rail infrastructure. Nevertheless, it well needs be asked: Who deconstructed the rail infrastructure? That was the case under the aegis of the Union.
Sepp Müller
(CDU/CSU): Just look at the record books!
Yet it is right to build up the rail infrastructure. Establishments from research centers: Right. And it is also right to create a highly qualified employment structure.
The mainstay of the economy in the coal region in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thüringen is however the Mittelstand, especially small and very small business, manufacturing businesses. An attractive trades economy would be an authentic jobs motor. Finally free the trades from the Ampel bureaucracy! That would be more sensible than subvention orgies.
We can nevertheless not agree to vote in favor of your current motion; since you also hold this unspeakable eco-socialist transformation to be correct; you hold fast to it, dear colleagues of the Union.
Hydrogen is a wrong way. Hydrogen is not economic and will let the energy prices continue to explode; my colleague Dr. Kraft has directly explained that in the previous debates. The energy value of hydrogen is below par; it is of no use. You cannot simply convert the available gas pipelines to hydrogen. Here, you needed two or three times the pipe capacity. That, my ladies and the gentlemen colleagues, has now already been thoroughly plundered by this government,
Johannnes
Ardt (SPD): Och!
and for future generations is not a financial expectation. Leave to the people their coal, in a literal and figurative sense.
And, dear citizens in the eastern German coal regions, be smart, and in autumn vote blue [seid schlau, und wählt im Herbst blau]!
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
