Editorial February

The coalition negotiations will inevitably lead to a sharp brush with economic, business and legal realities. Many promises made during the election campaign will then be revealed for what they are – just fairy tales.  Others would cause damage that no reasonable society could ever accept. Germany would be well advised to listen attentively when even the supreme French auditing body, the Cours des Comptes, recommends that the state should stop building new nuclear power plants due to their high cost and inadequate returns. Exactly which pipelines should be used to pump Russian gas to Germany: Nordstream 3 or pipelines in Ukraine, just without a transit contract? Do we really want to have cash-strapped households in Germany install condensing boilers in their cellars if the price of natural gas in Europe rises sharply due to carbon pricing or trading?

With this in mind, all parties should bear in mind when making bold promises that the ‘day of reckoning’ always comes after the ballot. So anything that is exposed as a fairy tale will only aggravate the general sense of political disenchantment. Likewise, though, everything that proves to be technically, economically and legally sound will also strengthen democratic politics. And the party representatives who view evidence-based climate policies as superfluous and speak of ‘shameful windmills’ are simply unacceptable in every respect. History – and generations to come – will judge them.