From all-renewable to Putin's gas: German parties' election policies

Germany will hold snap elections on 23 February after the unstable three-way coalition led by Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed late last year.

Latest opinion polls point to a victory of the Christian Democrats (CDU) with their Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU). But as the conservatives will need one or two parties to form a new government – most likely the SPD again, or the Greens, or both – no single political faction will be able to push through its pure programme on energy.

Renewable energy advocates are, unsurprisingly, most enthusiastic about the Greens’ programme, but this time around it is likely that less progressive policy plans from the other two middle-ground parties will have a larger impact.

Here is an overview of the main parties’ election manifestoes:

CDU/CSU and ‘ugly wind turbines’

The conservatives in their election programme stress that energy needs to be “affordable, secure and clean”, and say they are free of ideology (unlike the very pro-renewables Greens, they claim) and technology-agnostic in their views. The duo promises to look at whether the switch-off of Germany’s last three nuclear reactors in 2023 can be reversed, and also wants to assess the possibility of building new small modular reactors and put more research into fusion energy.

Despite their revived nuclear enthusiasm (it was the CDU/CSU under Chancellor Merkel that pushed for the exit from the technology after the Fukushima disaster in Japan), the parties say they intend to continue the expansion of all renewable energies: not only onshore and offshore wind, and solar, but also hydro, bioenergy, geothermal and “renewable” wood.

In practice, the CDU/CSU is unlikely to push for a continuation of Germany’s current rapid expansion of solar and wind.

Merz hasn’t completely shut the door to a coalition with the Greens, but his relative anti-wind and pro-nuclear standpoints frontally clash with the ecologists' core values. Markus Söder, the leader of the even more conservative CSU and state premier of Bavaria, has ruled out a coalition with the Greens, although the maverick politician is known to frequently shift its positions (he was photographed hugging trees in the past and in 2011 said he would leave the government unless German quits nuclear power).

“Looking to other countries, the installation of [new] nuclear power stations takes 20 years. So, they have to tell what they intend to do during the next 20 years”, he said – especially as the conservatives officially adhere to a legally binding government target for Germany to become climate-neutral by 2045 (also set by the CDU/CSU-led Merkel government).

“Until 2045 we need more wind power to become carbon dioxide free. Even if you're a fan of or a friend of nuclear power, it won't help during that time,” he said.

SPD

The SPD in its election manifesto says it wants to maintain the current speed of the energy transition but stresses affordability.

The party points to the paradox that grid fees – which German consumers have to pay on top of their power bills to finance the expansion of electricity grids – are higher in the North of the country, although more wind power is being produced there. The outgoing energy minister Robert Habeck from the Greens had already made proposals to reduce grid fees through temporary state subsidies and reorganise network fees in the medium term, but the collapse of the government meant there is no majority in parliament for those any longer.

The SPD wants to cap grid fees for private consumers at €0.03/kWh, and also reduce them for energy-intensive industries, but unlike Habeck presents no clear plan on how to finance that. The party also wants to lower the tax on electricity.

To finance the upgrade of energy and other infrastructure, the Social Democrats want to reform Germany’s ‘debt-break’ law that demands a near-balanced budget and create a so-called ‘Germany Fund’ that would mobilise public and private capital. The unwillingness to reform the zero-debt law was one of the main reasons why the neo-liberal Free Democrats (FDP) in November provoked the collapse of the government.

Also, as the legislation is enshrined in the constitution, a two-thirds majority would be required, meaning in the outgoing legislature the CDU would be needed for the change, but the conservatives refuse to help Scholz’s lame-duck administration. In the next parliament, though, a likely rising share of far-right and far-left parties could make any constitutional reform impossible.

The SPD proposes letting citizens participate in the revenue of wind farms, but that is already possible today. The party rules out a revival of nuclear power.

The Social Democrats in the outgoing legislative period waved through most of Habeck’s pro-renewable energy policies in exchange for concessions in other areas. But renewables and climate issues are not at the core of its convictions and the party during its previous three coalition governments with the Merkel-CDU backed far less progressive energy policies. Those included the construction of the North Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea that led to a dangerous dependency on Russian gas or coal-friendly policies.

The Greens

The Greens lobby for a continuation of the current rapid expansion of renewable energies, which was greatly accelerated by a flurry of legislation pushed through by economics and energy minister Robert Habeck. Under his leadership, the government gave renewable energy projects priority status, eased permitting rules, changed biodiversity protection to a population-based approach, instead of looking at each and every bird – all measures that diminished possible legal cases against wind projects.

WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson described Habeck’s policies a “a masterstroke of policy-making” that “didn’t cost a pfenning. Robert Habeck is fantastic. In 2019 before he became Germany’s economy and climate minister they were permitting 2GW of new onshore wind a year. Now it’s 12GW a year,” Dickson said.

“Germany’s wind auctions used to be badly under-subscribed. There weren’t enough permitted projects. Now they’re over-subscribed, and prices are falling. The latest auction awarded 4GW of new capacity. That makes 11GW of onshore wind successfully auctioned this year, more than the rest of Europe put together.”

Habeck also abolished the renewables surcharge (EEG surcharge) that Germans had to pay on top of their power bills to finance the expansion of green power and shifted the cost to the federal budget. That is increasingly expensive, though.

The Greens also want to set up a special fund that is exempt from the debt brake rule to finance the continued support for renewables, build more high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power lines to transport cheap renewable energy from Germany’s windy north to population centres and industry in the south, subsidise energy-intensive industries, and build a series of new hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants as back up for days of little sun and wind.

The Greens are the only party that mentions a renewable energy target in its programme – 80% by 2030 and 100% by 2035 – up from nearly 60% now and about 40% when the current government took power in 2021.

AfD

The populist party wants to go back to a mix of nuclear and fossil-based energy generation, including ‘clean’ coal, and at a party conference last weekend has proposed to tear down wind turbines, which AfD candidate for Chancellor, Alice Weidel, to the outrage of German energy groups called "wind mills of shame". It lobbies for reaching a deal with Russia and resuming the import of cheap gas from there after repairing the North Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea.

All democratic parties, including the conservative CDU/CSU, have ruled out a coalition with the AfD, although according to recent polls, it could become the second-strongest party with around 20% of the vote.

BSW

The conservative leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) – named after a popular talk-show queen and best-selling author of books critical of capitalism – pursues similar energy policies to those of the AfD. The recent spin-off of the radical Left party is also relatively Putin-friendly and wants to resume gas imports from Russia.

Wagenknecht calls the current Green-dominated energy policy naïve as it supposedly doesn’t have a concept for days with little sun and wind (‘Dunkelflaute’ or ‘dark lull’) and reportedly demands to outlaw the installation of wind turbines in forests and nature conservation areas.

The new party may just enter parliament. While not their favourite option, the SPD and CDU haven’t ruled out a coalition with it and already cooperate with the leftist populist party in two states.

FDP

Linke

The radical Left party wants to finance a fast expansion of renewables with levies for affluent taxpayers while subsidising electricity for poor households. It wants to nationalise power generation. After the BSW split off it (Wagenknecht was the Left’s best-known politician), the party’s popularity tanked, tough, and it may not re-enter parliament.