Saturday Commentary and Review #128
Germany's Greens in Disarray, "Residential School Denialism" in Canada, Spain's "La Trump", Sweden as Uniquely Swedish, "The Journey of Man" at 20
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The politics of France and Germany are heavily represented in the Saturday Commentary and Review on this Substack for good reasons:
France continuously flails about trying to preserve its polite ruling elite while attempting to not only lead Europe, but securing its economic interests abroad, often at the expense of its fellow Europeans
Germany continues to debase itself in ways that grow more comical by the day
Western English language media has barely touched on how Angela Merkel and her CDU party effectively threw the last Bundestag elections to the “Traffic Light Coalition” consisting of the SPD, Greens, and the FDP. It is a subject that is very worthy of exploration, but few seem interested in completing the task. What we do know is that this coalition was heaven-sent for the USA, as it arrived just in the nick of time i.e. the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Greens in particular were given the softest of touches in German media during the election campaign, with horrific examples of bias including TV journalists applauding their answers on live TV. I’d share a link with you (because I have seen it with my own eyes), but Google and YouTube are not as easily searchable as they once were. Hopefully German speakers can help out here.
The German CDU was not playing ball with the USA over Nordstream 2, insisting on the need for cheap and reliable Russian gas to power its massive industry, the underpinning of its export-driven economy. On the other hand, the Greens promised to scuttle ties with Russia, adopting a hawkish foreign policy, while retaining its anti-nuclear power stance atop its traditional pro-environmental platform. Dumb people of all stripes rushed to support the Greens, because “Environmentalism = good, Russia = bad”. What they failed to calculate in their heads was how Germany could maintain its economic output by cutting itself off from reliable sources of energy.
Green Party co-Leader and current Vice Chancellor and Minister of the Economy for Germany Robert Habeck has conceded the point, warning that Germany could shut down whole industries if access to Russian gas (that is still flowing through Ukraine) is completely cut off:
Germany may be forced to wind down or even switch off industrial capacity if Ukraine’s gas transit agreement with Russia isn’t extended after it expires at the end of next year, according to Economy Minister Robert Habeck.
Habeck, who is also the vice chancellor, issued the stark warning Monday at an economic conference in eastern Germany, saying that policymakers should avoid “making the same mistake again” of assuming that the economy will be unaffected without precautions to secure energy supplies.
A 12 year old could have predicted this outcome, but Habeck and the coalition that he takes part in decided to try their luck anyway. They have up come short.
Despite the full-scale invasion of the country by Kremlin forces in February last year, Ukraine is still earning transit fees by allowing Russian gas to flow through its territory to countries like Austria, Slovakia, Italy, and Hungary.
Even if some supply continues beyond 2024, it’s unlikely that the current transit agreement will be extended under similar conditions, given the lack of political support, according to a report by the Center on Global Energy Policy published last week.
“Direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on the extension of the transit contract look highly implausible in the current environment,” according to the reports authors, Anne-Sophie Corbeau and Tatiana Mitrova.
I’m not even going to bother adding a comment to this excerpt.
Germans have finally realized that they were conned by Habeck and friends, leading to a significant drop in support for the Greens, and growing demands for him to resign as Minister of the Economy:
There was a time when Robert Habeck seemed unstoppable.
Throughout last spring and summer, the German vice chancellor and economy minister was leading in popularity polls as he steered the EU's largest economy through the energy crisis triggered by Russia's war and accelerated Germany's rollout of green energy.
With his direct and authentic communication style, the Green politician appealed to many voters, be it by recording a shaky but emotional smartphone video urging more military support for Ukraine or by not mincing words (and even coming close to tears) when describing the challenges and past failures of Germany's energy policies.
Media outlets, including POLITICO, occasionally called him "the real chancellor" — setting off alarm bells for the actual chancellor, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, as Habeck had made no secret of his ambition to lead his Green party to victory in the 2025 general election and become Germany's next leader.
Fast forward to today, and Habeck-mania has turned into Habeck-dismay: Half of all Germans want him to resign, a recent poll found. Also, his party's approval ratings have tanked: The Greens are down to 14 percent, from 23 percent last summer, according to the average of national polls analyzed by POLITICO's Poll of Polls. Habeck, meanwhile, finds himself at the lower end of popularity ratings for top German politicians.
Habeck's downturn is linked mainly to an unpopular heating law at the core of the Greens' efforts to transition German households to renewable energies. A cronyism affair in Habeck's economy ministry further affected his popularity and reputation.
Adding to the injury, the party's political nemesis — the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which denies the threat of climate change and the need to act — has managed to seize on the energy policy controversy and risen to 18 percent in polls, now ousting the Greens as Germany's third-strongest political force.
“Climate Change” as an article of faith, and the need to combat it no matter the economic implications for ordinary Germans has tanked his popularity:
The clear downturn for the minister and his party, however, came after a contested heating law earlier this spring. The law seeks to tackle Germany's problematic dependence on fossil fuels by banning — apart from a few exceptions — new installations of gas and oil heating in buildings as of 2024, replacing them with climate-friendlier alternatives such as heat pumps. But those can cost around €20,000 more per installation than gas heating.
The Greens had hoped that most Germans would understand the need for such a drastic step, given the acute energy crisis and climate emergency. But conservative politicians and the media blasted the law as an unreasonable financial burden for many households.
Implications for Europe as a whole:
The tumble of Habeck and his Greens is being closely watched in Brussels and other European capitals, as it raises questions over how serious the EU's biggest economy is with its ambition to reduce dependency on gas and oil. The EU has an overall target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, and achieving climate neutrality in 2050.
Despite lip service from all three German coalition parties in committing to these goals, the recent controversy has laid bare how it's mainly the Greens paying in lost popularity for potentially painful implementation. Any political price of pushing through such measures will serve as a lesson not for only future German governments, but for other countries as well.
The “incorruptible Greens” are corrupt:
Green policy clash aside, the cronyism affair at his ministry may prove most damaging to his reputation in the longer term. Habeck delayed for weeks before dismissing his top state secretary Patrick Graichen, who had recommended the best man at his own wedding for a top government post and approved a government-funded project for an NGO where his sister is an active board member.
Habeck said last month that the decision to dismiss Graichen had been "tough," but conceded that his state secretary had made "one mistake too many."
The affair was particularly embarrassing for the Greens, a party that includes transparency as among its core values — but once in power, appeared to be just as susceptible to corruption as any other party.
The German Greens are the worst party in Europe: fanatical believers in Climate Change who insist on upending how all Germans (and Europeans) live their daily lives in order to slay this dragon, war hawks who demand regime change in Moscow, and de-industrialists, whether openly or by accident.
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