With his urgent application, the CDU MP Heilmann had caused the heating law to be temporarily stopped.
(Photo: IMAGO/Future Image)
Berlin After the temporary stop of the Building Energy Act (GEG) by the Federal Constitutional Court, the Union faction is calling for a restart of the project. According to a motion by the parliamentary group, the decision was a serious defeat for the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), which Parliament was to deal with on Friday morning (approx. 9.45 a.m.). The application was submitted to the German Press Agency.
The court decision is also “an exclamation point for the right of MPs” to a thorough consultation of laws. It also shows that climate protection cannot be achieved with a crowbar.
The application goes on to say: “The heavy blow from Karlsruhe for the traffic lights must not become a lasting setback for climate protection. It is therefore not enough to simply push through the same law in a new procedure. Lost trust can only be restored with a fundamental new start on the matter.”
The coalition factions emphasized that there should be no more changes in terms of content. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil told the editorial network Germany (RND/Friday): “Citizens can now plan.” The law is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2024.
“If more time is desired and required because the court determines it, then so be it. That’s not a broken leg either,” said Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) on Thursday evening on the ZDF program “Lanz”. The decisive factor is that no parliamentary group, not even the FDP, has moved away from the law. “I’m happy for the Union that it now has time to study the law again,” said Habeck.
Displeasure with schedules in the Bundestag
The stop by the court also sparked a debate about the fact that members of the Bundestag should be given more time for sometimes complex legal procedures. The CDU MP Thomas Heilmann had applied for a temporary injunction because of the tight schedule in the legislative process.
>> Read also: Stomp the law and start over – a comment
The Union faction is now urging, among other things, for “serious procedures” within reasonable periods of time. The application also calls for “harmonizing a new building energy law with municipal heating planning and at the same time creating clarity about the promotion of private households when converting to ecological heating”.
The head of the CSU deputy in the Bundestag, Alexander Dobrindt, sees the cooperation between the coalition and the opposition as burdened. “We currently have a poisoned climate in the Bundestag that I have never experienced before,” Dobrindt told the editorial network Germany. “Every day we learn that the coalition factions have lost or even deliberately discarded any understanding of how to deal properly with the opposition. These atmospheric disturbances have an after-effect and leave lasting damage between the factions.” Union faction leader Friedrich Merz had previously made a similar statement.
The “Rheinische Post” said the CDU chairman in the direction of Bärbel Bas: “Perhaps the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court is also an encouragement for the President of the Bundestag to pay more attention in the future to ensuring that the rights of individual MPs and minorities are better protected.” The Federal Constitutional Court has now taken over the work “that should actually have been done by Parliament itself”. Bas himself spoke on Thursday evening in the ZDF “heute journal” with a view to the decision of a serious warning.
More: How the Karlsruhe decision throws traffic lights into chaos