BERLIN — Friedrich Merz, who could become Germany’s next chancellor, has pledged to restore Germany’s industrial competitiveness by pushing back on climate policy.
Germany’s economic policy under Olaf Scholz’s government is “almost entirely focused on climate protection,” Merz said Monday in a campaign speech in the western German industrial city of Bochum. “I want to speak clearly what I mean. We will and must change this.”
The left-wing coalition government, which collapsed last November amid ongoing disagreements over public finances and economic reforms, pledged to “ideally” phase out coal by 2030, eight years ahead of its official target. To achieve this, the coalition, which includes Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, will massively expand renewable energy and subsidize energy-intensive companies to help achieve carbon neutrality.
Germany is therefore the industrial leader in the European Union in terms of green infrastructure production. It has the highest number of structures for the manufacture of solar and wind technologies and ranks second after Italy for heat pumps.
But Merz hinted that he would radically change course.
“In recent years, we have often agreed on which energy sources to phase out,” he said, mentioning both coal and nuclear power in his speech. “But it’s impossible to throw away what we have until an alternative comes along. “If we continue down this path, we will endanger Germany as an industrial region, and we are not ready to do that.”
The SPD and the Green Party advocate green steel.
Merz and his conservative CDU-CSU alliance are in a leading position to lead the next coalition government after the February 23 elections, with voting intentions at 31%. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in second place with 21%.
The problem for Merz is that, given the strength of the AfD, it is almost certain that his allies will have to govern with either the SPD (rated at 15% in the poll) or the Greens (13%). He strongly criticizes the parties that implemented these policies. Indeed, the CDU leader has ruled out a coalition with far-right parties.
During his visit to Bochum, Merz also expressed skepticism about the previous government’s emphasis on “green steel”, i.e. steel mills powered by hydrogen produced from renewable energy. “I don’t believe that the rapid transition to hydrogen steel mills will be successful,” he said during the roundtable discussion.
Former national steel champion ThyssenKrupp has received a grant of around €2 billion in 2023 to accelerate decarbonization by replacing coal-fired blast furnaces with new ones using hydrogen.
At Bochum, Merz proposed focusing on carbon capture to mitigate emissions from steel mills rather than completely avoiding carbon emissions with hydrogen.
His main concern about hydrogen produced from renewable energy is cost. But experts warn that carbon capture, an electricity-intensive technology, is also expensive and not yet available at the scale needed to decarbonize the steel sector.
Green Party prime ministerial candidate Robert Habeck expressed opposition to Merz’s comments about steel plants running on hydrogen.
“We should not believe that coal power plants and steel produced from coal energy still have a chance in the global market,” Habeck told reporters Tuesday.
SPD leaders also criticized Friedrich Merz.
“Anyone who wants to reduce efforts now will destroy billions of euros worth of investments and tens of thousands of jobs,” said Saarland Minister and Minister Anke Rehlinger. earth From the southwestern part of the country, where the steel industry is a key industry, to the German newspaper Stern.
Zia Weise, Rasmus Buchsteiner and Chris Lunday contributed to this article.
This article was first published in English by POLITICO and edited in French by Jean-Christophe Catalon.
