Friedrich’s speeches were always boring and merely reflected Germany’s political mainstream. They provided fertile ground for criticism from the AfD. Yes, if chancellors like Scholz or Merz were concise, witty and non-conformist, the AfD would not have risen so high. And lo and behold: the chancellor, who has long since surpassed Olaf Scholz in terms of total unpopularity among his own people, is finally speaking plainly:
“I would like us to return to acceptable market prices in energy production at some point and not have to permanently subsidise energy prices from the federal budget. [Applause] We cannot do that in the long term. And that is possible – I want to say this here, it is almost trivial, but I want to say it again: it was a serious strategic mistake to phase out nuclear energy. If we were going to do it, we should at least have kept the last remaining nuclear power plants in Germany online three years ago, so that we would at least have the electricity generation capacity [applause] that we had at that time. As it is, we are now undertaking the most expensive energy transition in the world. I don’t know of any other country that is making it as difficult and as expensive for itself as Germany. We have taken on something that we now have to correct, but we simply do not have enough energy generation capacity. So, we want to improve this quickly. The power plants are to be built. As I said, we now have the approval, which is imminent. All the necessary documents have been exchanged, and then we can get started, put it out to tender and start building. Incidentally, construction can also take place at the old sites. The old grids can also be used. That was different under the previous government. They wanted to do everything from scratch.” (Video)
Exactly: making everything new – that is the core idea of all revolutionaries, whether they are red, brown or green. But where was this combative Merz when his party colleague Angela Merkel shut down nuclear power plants in 2011 amid the Fukushima fever? There is a lack of men with backbone in both the CDU and the SPD, because it was under Merz’s government that the two 160-metre-high cooling towers of the Gundremmingen nuclear power plant were blown up in front of thousands of spectators.
So is this policy change genuine, or just empty words? The question is not insignificant, especially for Germany’s neighbouring countries. France, for example, supplies Germany with electricity from nuclear power plants to prevent blackouts in the country and is therefore more of a lobbyist for the Greens. Poland, on the other hand, is a subcontractor to the German automotive and engineering industry, and if Germany commits economic suicide through its green policies in recent years, this will have a negative impact on the country’s economy.
