It is not so often that the Bundestag is concerned with the fundamentals – after all, there are usually very concrete projects, laws, conflicts to discuss. On Wednesday afternoon, however, MEPs discussed a question that could hardly be more fundamental: How much freedom is possible, how many bans are necessary? "Freedom instead of prohibitions – strengthening the responsible citizen" was the title of the current hour, which took place at the request of the Union parliamentary group. Above all, it showed that everyone understands freedom to do what they think is right.
Friederike Haupt
Political correspondent in Berlin.
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The CDU politician Thomas Gebhart made his criticism of the "traffic light prohibition policy" with the example of the planned ban on oil and gas heating. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) is causing fear among citizens, said Gebhart. What should one say to the octogenarian pensioner couple, who have been living in their house for 50 years and will have to fear from next year to install an expensive heating system? Apart from that, the prohibition plans are "simply not feasible", but there is a lack of skilled workers and quickly deliverable heat pumps.
Is freedom the status quo for the CDU?
The parliamentarian Timon Gremmels, a Social Democrat, countered that said ban was not an end in itself, but served to comply with the climate goals that Germany had set itself when the CDU was still part of the government. Gremmels described the ban as one that enables freedom by contributing to a world in which future generations can still live well. In addition, it is absurd to suggest to citizens that from next year their old heating will be torn out.
The Green Bernhard Herrmann was even more explicit: Does the CDU mean by "freedom" the preservation of the status quo? Fossil energy is expensive and will become even more expensive, the Union is engaged in "window dressing". He also argued with the well-being of citizens, such as that of his four-month-old granddaughter.
The FDP, in the dilemma, since on the one hand it is part of the government attacked by the Union, on the other hand itself pleads against the ban on oil and gas heating, let its deputy Michael Kruse cajole that they take the "freedom" to "optimize" Habeck's proposal, and pointed out that the title of the current hour particularly triggers the FDP as a "party of freedom". He countered the Union: "We mean the freedom to take responsibility, not the freedom from responsibility." In the past 16 years, the CDU and CSU have taken the "freedom" to do little for climate protection.
The AfD politician Karsten Hilse freely chose the subjects of his criticism: It ranged from the "undemocratic juggernaut EU" to the "socialist project" to take the German house and car.