| Chancellor Olaf Scholz is keeping his calm.
He remained unperturbed last week when a man in a private car joined his motorcade, drove with it through the security barrier and onto the tarmac of Frankfurt airport, where he pounced on Scholz as he emerged from his limousine to give him a big hug. Only then did security personnel intervene and arrest the man, before asking themselves some serious questions.
Scholz and his center-left Social Democrats (SPD) also seem to be calmly sitting on the fence while their coalition partners, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), are still pitted against the Greens over a draft law that would require all new heating systems installed in German buildings to use at least 65% renewable energy.
DW’s Ben Knight sums up the controversy.
But SPD Secretary General Kevin Kühnert is optimistic that a compromise will be found soon and already sees a shift from “communication of refusal to communication of enablement.”
The conservative opposition parties — eyeing two important regional elections this fall — are using the situation to drive a relentless campaign against the Greens, stoking fears among homeowners and tenants that they will be left alone with unmanageable costs.
It appears to be working: According to pollster Civey last week, 70% of Germans just want the draft law to be scrapped altogether.
A possible delay in measures to phase out fossil fuels has climate activists up in arms. Police in several states have now raided the homes of activists of the “Last Generation” group, who for weeks disrupted traffic in major cities by gluing themselves to the streets. |
