Kühnert at Illner: Habeck’s heating hammer is already coming in summer

The coalition has been running in emergency mode for a long time, now it is broadcasting SOS: poll numbers are in the basement, the SPD is on par with the AfD, and Habeck is constantly showing new perseverance capers. Maybrit Illner registers “Pressure on the boiler – traffic lights are arguing, the country is desperate”. Help!

The guests

Kevin Kuehnert (33, SPD). The General Secretary orders the Habeck Heating Act to be passed: “It must be successful this week!”

Mario Czaja (47, CDU). The Secretary General puzzles demonstratively: “Where is Olaf Scholz, who allows this argument all the time?”

Katrin Goering-Eckardt (57, Green). The Vice-President of the Bundestag calls on the Union to exercise moderation, otherwise there is a risk of a “populist division in society”. Bananas of all things!

Siegfried Russwurm (59). When it comes to the heating issue, the BDI President criticizes a “focus on an urban milieu that neglects the reality in the suburbs and in the country”. Rumms!

Mark Schieritz (49). The journalist (“Zeit”) tweeted: “A CO2 price with climate money is a way out of the heating misery and honestly: That’s political slapstick!”

Mathias Sun. The Danish journalist (“Dagbladet Information”) is “surprised” about the German heating debate.

The price is hot! The Zoff-O-Meter hopes that there isn’t just party-political boiler-drifting again today.

Loudest confidence

The Chancellor’s cleaner has the first word: “I’m firmly assuming,” announced Kühnert pithy, “that in two weeks, then the next week of the German Bundestag session, we will have the law for the first reading on the agenda.”

Because, according to the SPD general: “This is the prerequisite that we can get through the law before the summer break. From what I’ve seen, I think that’s absolutely realistic. There’s less fussing now.”

Scratchy criticism

The traffic light comrade coolly judges the many urgent questions from politicians and the public to Economics Minister Robert Habeck: “Some have made a public Bohei out of it with a certain pleasure.”

“Zeit” journalist Schieritz takes a less relaxed view of it: “I’ve asked myself a couple of times: What kind of government is that?” He etches under the strict gaze of the SPD general. “In Parliament, laws never go out the way they go in, but first they have to go in!”

Premature loose ball

Talk host Illner wears Friedensengelweiß, but doesn’t play shawms: “Winfried Kretschmann, Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg and original Grüner, says: Robert wanted to bang his head through the wall. Complex things like heating cannot be solved with bans!” she quotes the Green Grande as saying. Her pointed question to Göring-Eckardt: “Is he right?”

“No!” replies the Bundestag Vice President as if fired from a pistol. Too late, she unscrews a party-friendly silencer: “I hate to say that Winfried Kretschmann, whom I really appreciate and who has also shown in Baden-Württemberg how to make ecological politics in such a way that people get involved…”

Most energetic perseverance slogan

Then Göring-Eckardt hurriedly rowed out of the self-harm zone: “Things were always written into the draft law,” she scolds the critics, for example “bans that weren’t real at all.” But she doesn’t want to repeat that again now, because that makes “everybody ready to go”.

The Greens also throw out the usual political platitudes without hesitation: “Talk to each other, not about each other” and “In the interests of the citizens”. Her appeal: “I can only advise everyone not to come up with untruths, half-truths and attributions.”

Most important point

“There has been a great deal of uncertainty in the country,” the CDU general raged after her, “due to the heat pump, the most expensive of all technologies”, because “we are working with bans” and “that in the first quarter twice as much oil – and gas heaters were sold than before.”

The BDI President presses his arms heavily on the thin table top. “The law shows for the first time what this energy transition actually and in essence is,” he judges, namely “that it costs money and we have to think about how we can make it compatible.”

Most realistic opening balance

“In the end, there are typically two candidates who pay for it: the end consumer and the taxpayer,” Russwurm states mercilessly. “Stupid if you are both”. groan!

His advance warning: “So far we have not analyzed the costs of the energy transition. Now we show them, but we also have to pay them. Who are the strong shoulders? The villa owner with heated pool? I know one! We make the discussion too easy for ourselves.”

Most controversial media scolding

“I’m sitting here as a contemporary witness,” says Kühnert. “I led the ‘Building and Housing’ working group for the SPD during the coalition negotiations. We have already talked about the Building Energy Act. You could have dealt with it for a year and a half!”

His accusation: “I take every criticism into account, saying that we could have started better communication earlier. But I also allow myself to say that maybe last year there would have been one less show on the subject of tanks, where we could have talked about the heat transition!”

Are you serious? “I always think it’s great!” scoffs the talk show host. “I don’t want to defend the media now, but one could have said it would be great if politicians had reminded us that this project exists!”

Most defiant repetition

Illner also cleans up with Göring-Eckardt on this occasion: Her next clip quotes the Greens with the harsh accusation “A Federal Chancellor must be at the forefront of the fight against the climate crisis instead of slowing down.” Ui! And now?

But the Bundestag Vice President sticks to it: “Tackling the climate crisis is not a special task for the Greens, but a task for the entire government,” she grumbles stubbornly. “I would have liked the self-proclaimed climate chancellor to say: Guys, it’s really serious now!”

Strongest allegations

Göring-Eckardt’s ambitious goal: “Let’s manage it in such a way that everyone can participate and maybe even want to be part of this project, in which we can also show what we can do, as a country, together.” Heidewitzka!

She can hardly count on the CDU: “Not ideology and narrowing down to a few technologies,” counters Czaja, “but promoting and demanding. First you have to ask the heat planning question. A complete mess! People just don’t know anymore. All you see is quadrupling, quintupling the cost!”

Most threatening temperature rise

“The uncertainty and the confusion, a part of it goes on our cover,” the SPD general now admits, slightly irritated. “Your party friends have also contributed with a certain enjoyment to the fact that people no longer knew where the front and back are.” Bang!

“Caution!”, the CDU General shoves him off. “It’s up to the opposition to point out the government’s mistakes.”

“You talking about the Energy Stasi?” Kühnert glared at him. “Is that your job too?”

But Czaja follows up: “The chancellor is not leading! He’s hiding behind the others!” he growls. “This uncertainty leads to many believing that only the political fringes are what will help them.” Groan!

Most Serious Criticism

The industry president, qualified engineer and professor of mechatronics, puts the talk back on track: “We need an energy concept, not just a heat concept,” he states dryly. “We need gas power plants. Who plans them? Who builds them? Who finances the whole thing?”

His concern: “I know regions in the world where I can generate a kilowatt hour of electricity for one cent. The same countries have German companies build electrolysis units and then ask: What do you want to buy from me?”

Strongest Warning

“There are three companies in the world that build hydrogen-capable gas turbines,” adds Russwurm. “As long as they don’t stand, we’ll burn coal.”

“They prematurely switched off nuclear power and instead increased coal power!” Czaja thunders to the group. The “Zeit” journalist nods eagerly, the Green smiles tormented.

Most apt phrase

“Recently, five times more heat pumps were installed in Denmark per thousand households than in Germany,” reports the next ZDF clip. And: “Almost 65 percent of Danish households are connected to the district heating network.”

The journalist Sonne describes the necessary persuasion work on his compatriots with a native formula: “People worked with whips and carrots!” He looks “amazed” at the discussion in Germany, because “it has almost become an identity-political debate.”

Most important vow

There are only 22 years left until climate neutrality, Kühnert warns at the end, “so not much time left for palaver!”

“We will not agree to any law,” he promises with jagged hand movements, “where someone has to say at the end because of the heating replacement: We lived well within our own four walls for 40 years, then the Building Energy Act came along and we had to get out. That’s not going to happen.” Amen!

quote of the evening

“It is logical that someone has to bear the costs of climate change, and they will not be green men!” Kevin Kühnert

Conclusion

Heated attacks, cool counterattacks, the politicians fought for every tenth of a degree and the talk show host kept turning the thermostat up to the limit: it was a talk show in the “Boiler Battle” category.