German coalition in crisis over plan to ban gas boilers

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Relations within German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fragile coalition government plunged to a new low on Tuesday after Liberals thwarted one of the Greens’ pet projects – a bill to ban gas boilers in new homes from starting from next year – prompting allegations of breach of trust and double-dealing.

Robert Habeck, clearly furious, the Greens’ vice-chancellor and economy minister, accused the Liberals of ‘breaking their word’, saying ruling parties agreed in late March to pass the boiler bill in parliament before the summer recess.

This would now no longer be possible after the Liberal Democrats (FDP) postponed parliamentary discussion of the bill to first reading. “I note that the FDP is not honoring the promise it has made,” she said.

The fight between the FDP and the Greens risks putting a damper on Scholz’s legislative agenda after the Greens threatened to retaliate by blocking FDP-sponsored bills.

Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition Christian Democrats, spoke of a “lack of leadership and chaos in the [Social Democrat]led government”.

Germany has long been concerned about the huge amount of CO₂ emitted by its buildings. The sector dumped 112 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents last year, a figure that needs to fall to 67 million tonnes by 2030 if the country has any hope of meeting its climate goals.

About 80 percent of the heat for buildings comes from burning fossil fuels, and experts agree that emissions will only substantially decrease once the country switches to renewable energy sources like heat pumps. The move is seen as a cornerstone of Germany’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2045.

Under Habeck’s Economy Ministry-sponsored heating bill and approved by the cabinet in April, every newly installed heating system must rely on up to 65 per cent of renewable energy from 2024. gas boilers.

The Greens see the bill as a key part of their climate agenda. But the FDP, led by Finance Minister Christian Lindner, refused to put it on the Bundestag agenda for this week, saying much more work was needed.

Britta Hasselmann, parliamentary leader of the Greens, said she has always perceived the FDP as an “honest intermediary”. “This apparently no longer applies to Christian Lindner. . . unreliability is just a beggars belief,” she said.

But the FDP has been challenging. Christian Dürr, head of his parliamentary group, said that the bill “is obviously not ready yet – the Greens and the Social Democrats say so too, just like us”.

“Many people are concerned, with justification,” he told ARD, the public broadcaster. “After all, we need a law in which the heating system corresponds to the house and not vice versa, and this is not yet guaranteed”.