The Bundestag and Bundesrat have decided to include the port of Mukran as a location for an LNG terminal in the relevant law. However, criticism of the plans continues, and not only from the opposition.
When the gong rings in the plenary hall of the Bundestag at 9 a.m., the MPs stand up, including Anna Kassautzki. She is a member of the SPD Bundestag and represents the interests of the Vorpommern-Rügen/Vorpommern-Greifswald I constituency. The island of Rügen also belongs to her constituency.
So Kassautzki takes a special look at the debate and the subsequent roll-call vote that the CDU/CSU and Left Party factions had called for. It is about changing the LNG Acceleration Act, in particular whether the port of Mukran on Rügen will be included in the law.
When expanding an LNG terminal, this would enable a quicker planning process, because the location would then fall under the LNG Acceleration Act. However, the port of Mukran, which belongs to the city of Sassnitz on the island of Rügen, is not only controversial as a location among members of the Bundestag.
Political lesson learned?
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), who felt the concentrated rejection of many islanders on Rügen in April, also knows this. As the first speaker in today’s debate, he nevertheless promotes Mukran as a location. His main argument is security of supply. “You shouldn’t assume that everything will always go well,” he says. That is the political lesson that has been learned.
Therefore, an LNG site on Rügen is necessary and the LNG supply is only a bridge to a future hydrogen supply.
FDP: “Energy war” not over yet
FDP MP Felix Kruse warns that the “energy war” is not over yet. “Do we want to wait for the gas shortage?” he asks and goes on to say: “No, we won’t wait until the East is threatened, until Bavaria is threatened, we will ensure that we have sufficient capacity so that we are not vulnerable.” – the same argument that Habeck made before, only much more emotional.
Ben Bergt (SPD) also argues with precaution and uses an English proverb: “There is no glory in prevention.” Freely translated: There is no glory in prevention. Additional capacities are required because the gas has to be transported to Eastern and Central Europe. There was no other way, since the right lines running from west to east were not available.
contradiction of the opposition
Ralph Lenkert from the Die Linke faction calculates for the government that there is absolutely no gas shortage that would justify further site expansion. In addition, the gas suppliers have rebuilt their lines so that gas can be transported from west to east and in the other direction.
“The chancellor has decided that a holiday island will become an LNG location. That’s it,” calls Oliver Grundmann from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group from the lectern in the direction of the government bench. Grundmann is one of the politicians who advocate LNG. He himself has always campaigned for a location in Stade, Lower Saxony. The AfD also argues that tourism would be threatened if two regasification ships (FSRU) were to be stationed in the port of Mukran.
Anna Kassautzki follows the debate attentively – but the arguments for the Mukran location do not convince her. In her personal statement, the dem ARD Capital Studio is available, she writes, among other things: “Even as a directly elected member of the Bundestag, it has still not been made clear to me whether this need actually exists. Expert reports, e.g. by the DIW and the EWI, come to the conclusion that these capacities are not needed. In In my opinion, there is a real danger that we will continue to tie ourselves to fossil fuels and thus create new lock-in effects and dependencies.”
An island fights back
The result of the vote by name has not yet been announced, so the legal representative of the municipality of Ostseebad Binz, Reiner Geulen, spoke in a press release: An interim order against the planned construction of the facilities would be applied for before the Federal Administrative Court with the aim of temporarily stopping construction . In addition, a timely completion of the planned plants is not possible in the foreseeable future, even if one assumes a “gas emergency”, the letter says.
In the roll-call vote after the debate, 369 MPs voted in favor of including the Mukran site in the LNG Acceleration Act. Kassautzki is one of the 300 MPs who voted no. There are four abstentions.
state government goes at a distance
After the vote in the Bundestag, the LNG Acceleration Act is the last item on the agenda in the Bundesrat. There, Till Backhaus, SPD Environment Minister in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, is campaigning for the Federal Council to call the mediation committee on the matter of the LNG Acceleration Act. His application is rejected by the majority of the Federal Council.
Backhaus blames the federal government for the fact that the resistance on the island is so great. “The lack of communication and transparency, for which the federal government is responsible, is to blame for this not inconsiderable dispute,” he says. The people felt left out and partly reminded of the old days when they were not taken along and confronted with a fait accompli. One is basically ready to accompany a new terminal. However, he does not speak out for Mukran, but brings the Rostock location into the conversation.
It became clear this Friday afternoon in the Bundesrat: Robert Habeck cannot count on the support of the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for the LNG terminal planned by the federal government in the port of Mukran. Backhaus also makes it clear once again: The sole responsibility for the Mukran site lies with the federal government.