Berlin As recently as Tuesday of this week, the Union faction was rather aloof towards the efforts of its member Thomas Heilmann to bring down the Building Energy Act (GEG) in Karlsruhe for the time being: “We do politics in Berlin, not in Karlsruhe,” said Thorsten Frei, parliamentary managing director the parliamentary group, said. That should mean: We confront the political opponent in terms of content – and not with procedural tricks.
Union faction leader Friedrich Merz was one of the first to congratulate. He rated the decision from Karlsruhe as “a serious defeat for Olaf Scholz’s federal government”. The CDU chairman said that a stop had been put to the “unspeakable dealings of the federal government with parliament and the public”. “Things cannot continue as before in the German Bundestag,” said Merz, referring to the extremely short deadlines for deliberating laws that triggered Heilmann’s initiative in Karlsruhe.
It is not a matter of course that Merz Heilmann praised him. Heilmann is not considered a Merz loyalist. Rather, he had appeared as a supporter of Angela Merkel at the very beginning of his political career, and his advice was sought from the former chancellor. Heilmann also has no fear of contact with the Greens. He is seen as pragmatic and sociable.
The politician was Berlin’s Senator for Justice from 2012 to 2016 and has been a member of the Bundestag since 2017. Heilmann, born in 1964, can look back on a varied entrepreneurial career. In 1990 he founded the Delta-Design advertising agency with Sebastian Turner and Olaf Schumann, which became Scholz & Friends in 1991. He was managing partner of the Berlin branch for more than ten years.
Heilmann distinguishes himself as a climate politician
From 2001 to 2008 he was co-chair of the European agency group. In addition, he worked in other companies in the areas of media, corporate investments, internet and real estate as a shareholder and member of the supervisory board.
Since 1991, Heilmann has co-founded or financed the development of several companies in various sectors. In addition to Antenne Sachsen, this also includes Xing, MyToys, Pixelpark and the energy broker Ampere. He was also a Facebook shareholder until the end of 2010. He sold his shares after the value had increased tenfold.
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Within the Union, Heilmann distinguishes himself today in particular as a climate politician. A few weeks ago he was re-elected chairman of the “Climate Union”. “We want to show how effective climate protection can best be organized politically with the economy and with the people and how the transformation can and must be accelerated,” said Heilmann on the occasion of his re-election. “Germany as a business location depends on being able to produce more and more climate-neutral products for the world market very quickly,” he said.
The Climate Union is a party-affiliated association founded two years ago that has set itself the goal. to support the Union in designing “the most effective and well thought-out approaches” in climate policy.
Amendment of the rules of procedure of the Bundestag intended
On Thursday, Heilmann underlined that he was in no way concerned with fundamentally questioning the climate policy goals of the Building Energy Act. However, he criticized the fact that the procedures of the Bundestag had suffered from haste and hectic for a long time and thus from a lack of due diligence. Heilmann called the decision of the constitutional court a “wake-up call” for the Bundestag.
The CDU politician spoke out in favor of changes to the rules of procedure of the Bundestag so that in future there will be more time for consultations – and applications will not only be sent to MPs the night before decisions are made. For example, a minimum time is needed for the responsible committee to deal with plans.
Heilmann on the heating law: “I did the traffic light a favor”
If there were any changes, he could very well imagine dropping his lawsuit. The Federal Constitutional Court only granted Heilmann’s urgent application on Wednesday. The main proceedings are still pending.
>> Read here: Comment: The traffic light and the heating law – full steam ahead against the wall
The lack of diligence and the hasty pace of the heating law would have damaged the reputation of democracy, Heilmann said. He not only considers a special session of the Bundestag to be necessary, but also a renewed hearing of experts and consultations in the responsible Bundestag committee.
Heilmann said he “did a favor” to the traffic light coalition with his successful urgent application. If the legislative process does not proceed properly, there is a risk of passing a law that is formally unconstitutional.
“A constitutional complaint about this law is as certain as amen in church,” says Heilmann. “A constitutional complaint against this law would have been successful.” Then the law would have been repealed later, which would have been “the very worst solution” for climate protection.
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