Dispute in German coalition government over future energy policy

BERLIN

An open dispute has erupted in the German governing coalition between the Greens and the liberals from the Free Democratic Party (FDP) over the course of German energy policy.

The FDP explicitly opposes a plan by the Greens to ban new gas and oil-fired heating systems from 2024.

"The FDP parliamentary group does not have a draft to ban oil and gas heaters. It will also not come to that," Christian Durr, the FDP parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, told daily Tagesspiegel on Wednesday.

According to Durr, the planned ban could further increase construction and rental costs in Germany.

"I think blanket bans are wrong - instead, we should remain open to technology and ensure that even classic heating systems can be operated in a climate-neutral manner in the future," Durr said.

Michael Kruse, the energy policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group in the Bundestag told daily FAZ: "The orgy of scrapping heating systems proposed by the Green Minister of Economics makes neither ecological nor economic sense."

The Greens, on the other hand, defend their plans. "Every upgraded gas or oil heating system, every energy improvement makes us freer and our buildings more robust," Green Party construction and housing policy spokeswoman Christina-Johanne Schroder told the Tagesspiegel.

In addition, the Green politician said the leaders of the coalition had already agreed on the installation ban in March 2022.

Background of the controversy is a plan of the Greens, published on Tuesday by the daily Bild, to prohibit the installation of new gas and oil heaters from 2024. Instead, only heating systems that are powered by at least 65% renewable energies are to be installed from that date.

The plans for the draft law come from the Ministry of Economics and Construction, which is headed by the Green Party's Robert Habeck. In the coalition agreement of 2021, the Social Democratic Party, the Greens and the FDP had agreed that from 2025 every newly installed heating system should be powered by 65% renewable energy.