Three nuclear reactors, two ministers, a helpless chancellor

Good morning, dear readers,

Resolutions at party conferences of the Greens have much less potential for tolerance than in other political formations. If you don’t comply, you lose your job. This also applies to long-time audience favorite Robert Habeck on the nuclear issue. The Economics Minister in the anti-nuclear party managed the feat of having two of the three still running reactors approved for operation beyond the legally fixed end date of New Year’s Eve 2022 until April. That is a lot for the Greens, but very little for the coalition partner FDP. Frontrunner and Finance Minister Christian Lindner wants to keep all three nuclear power plants in operation until 2024, including the purchase of new fuel rods.

Because of this trouble, Olaf Scholz (SPD) asked the two opponents to a secret summit yesterday at noon. Result: without words. Today we shall continue to speak. Scholz had announced on Friday that he would solve the specific question “very quickly, promptly by next week”. In view of the energy emergency in the republic, which was being blackmailed by KGB pupil Vladimir Putin, one wonders why the Federal Chancellor has not long since taken stronger action internally. In case he’s looking for a word: It’s called “guideline competence”.

Reinhold von Eben-Worlée, President of the Association of Family Entrepreneurs, has a clear opinion on the government’s nuclear fission: “Anyone who continues to deliberately burn expensive gas for electricity production in this economic crisis instead of relying on the electricity price-lowering effects of nuclear power spreads fear,” he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine”. It is “no wonder” that the AfD is getting stronger the more the Greens refuse to “practice a sensible crisis policy”.

Markus Jerger, Managing Director of the Federal Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, is already calling for government help to protect against attacks on the critical infrastructure. In the affected sectors, “massive investments must be made in system security and security protection,” he says. Since medium-sized companies are no longer financially able to do this, “government emergency programs that companies can access” are needed.

Not only the nuclear issue, but also the coal compromise negotiated by Habeck caused a dispute among the Greens. Should the planned demolition of the town of Lützerath remain? Yes, said the delegates with a mini-majority of 21 votes out of a total of 638 voters at the party conference. The Green Youth, which had called for a moratorium on the demolition, fell through. Climate activist Luisa Neubauer, herself a member, accused the Green Party of “ecological hyperrealism”. In the struggle for majorities and social approval, the Greens would continue to make compromises at the expense of the climate: “The big picture is manifested in Lützerath.”

Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, on the other hand, praised the coal compromise as a “huge success” and commented on Luisa Neubauer: “We don’t have to constantly apologize for what we’re doing.” If things continue like this, “Fridays for future” will soon be running with a hundred people the office of the Greens.

The Scholz government does not have to hire a debt advisor. Competent help is available with Gita Gopinath, Vice President of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In the Handelsblatt interview, she strengthens the line of Federal Minister of Finance Lindner. It is right to comply with the debt brake in 2023. Economists would be worried that an expansive financial policy would run counter to central bank attempts to limit inflation through higher interest rates. Expiring corona aid would free up money, Gopinath explains. She emphasizes that the energy crisis would continue to weigh on Germany: “This winter will be difficult, but winter 2023 could be even worse.”

It cannot be said that the number of deals by investment banks relating to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is currently multiplying like guinea pigs in the wake of the Putin crisis. But there is a boom in the “green” segment involving transactions with an ESG character (environment, social, governance) – in other words, wherever the sustainability, social behavior and corporate governance of companies are right. Such deals now account for around 22 percent of all M&A activity, says Jens Kengelbach, senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). And he also calculates that in the past two decades, “green deals” have performed around two and a half times as well as papers after ordinary transactions.

Train travelers are better off when top politicians and other celebrities happen to be on board. This emerges from the “Group guideline 199.0001, travel according to special regulations, 5.0” of the state-owned company, which the “Spiegel” spreads with relish. According to this, the VIP travel service of Deutsche Bahn AG is “exclusively responsible for ensuring that trips with high-ranking personalities and high-profile train journeys with the group board members are planned particularly precisely and carried out successfully”. For example, for image reasons, the wagons should be “in the best condition” and “thoroughly cleaned (inside and outside)” and roll along with the correct wagon sequence and regular staff. Thanks to an “operations supervisor”, trains are to be guided through the railway network without any problems, and the “VIP travel companion” can specify a “different stopping point”. Annoying loudspeaker announcements (delays?!) would have to be stopped if requested.

Stefan Gelbhaar, spokesman for transport policy for the Greens and a member of the Deutsche Bahn supervisory board, thinks that such special regulations are out of date: “The Deutsche Bahn is there for everyone, and there is already enough to do, for example in terms of accessibility.”

It’s the smaller stories that reveal the great atrocities of a war. Like the death of Yuriy Kerpatenko, conductor of the Kherson Philharmonic. According to Ukrainian sources, the father of the family was shot dead in his house by Russian soldiers because he refused to cooperate. Apparently, the occupiers, together with collaborating members of the Philharmonic Orchestra, had planned a festive concert in Kherson to “restore peaceful life”. Kerpatenko, chief conductor since 2004, refused.

In 2021 and in May of this year, the musician made a post that, as a Russian-speaking Chersonian, he had to suffer because Russian President Putin wanted to appear great: “You don’t have to save me from myself by threatening me. Don’t come to Kherson and build ‘Novorossiya’ here.”

We know that the film director Fritz Lang invented the countdown. In the lettering for the 1929 silent film “Frau im Mond”, the manned rocket “Friede” takes off towards the moon. Just before the engines ignite, the words “Ten seconds left!”, then “Six seconds left!”, finally three, two, one and finally the word “NOW” in capital letters appear. This is how the countdown came about. Lang believed, with some justification, that the countdown would give the audience an instant understanding of what was going on.

I don’t want to hide from you that I’m doing a little countdown – it’s my last week as your journalistic early bird feeder. On Wednesday, my successors Teresa Stiens and Christian Rickens will explain the old and the new “Morning Briefing” with me in a podcast. “Partir, c’est mourir un peu” by the French bard André Baugé could have been played as background music.

And then there is Peter Thiel, 55, a German-born Silicon Valley investor and Donald Trump supporter, who is making his next investments – in politics and business. He is “one of the most intellectual people I know, with incredible analytical skills and someone who likes to polarize and take very sharp opinions,” praises his brief chief strategist Sebastian Kurz. The former Chancellor of Austria, who has now co-founded a company for cyber security, also says: “He’s not a communist”.

Writer Martin Mosebach recently told, slightly alienated, in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” how Thiel and a group of young men had questioned him in a Californian villa about the political situation in Germany. Investor Thiel is supporting two Trump aides with millions of dollars in the upcoming US congressional elections. And in Germany, together with venture capitalist Project A, he is investing $17.5 million in the Munich-based company Quantum Systems, which supplies Ukraine with drones. The deal is intended to give the start-up access to US military knowledge – a quantum of hope.

I wish you a successful start to the week, motto: make haste with waste.

It greets you cordially

Her

Hans Jürgen Jakobs