Heating law: wake-up call from Karlsruhe tagesschau.de

The heating law has been stopped for the time being – and that’s a good thing. The Bundestag was too often in the last role as an extra. The wake-up call from Karlsruhe was overdue.

Nothing has been normal about the procedure for the Building and Energy Act (GEG) for months. From the leak to the finished legal text, which, formulated in an amendment, was really only available this Tuesday around 5 p.m. What was previously debated in the first reading in the Bundestag and at the first committee hearing was a completely outdated draft. A “placeholder text”, as MP Thomas Heilmann (CDU) calls it in his application to the Federal Constitutional Court.

Why the rush?

The much-quoted 110-page “formulation aid” was also only available last Friday. No wonder that many experts in the committee at the beginning of the week seemed at a loss as to what to recommend now. Nevertheless, the GEG absolutely had to go through Parliament this week. Why actually?

The Greens were supposedly about clarity for the citizens. But it seems clearer that they primarily wanted to end the unspeakable debate about the heating law. The concern is too great that she might also straddle the important state elections in autumn.

The FDP is apparently more relaxed here. The Liberals don’t seem to care that the GEG will be passed later.

Traffic light missed an opportunity

Consideration for the partner? Which partner? The traffic light could have shown at least this week that it is capable of good governance – it also missed this opportunity. The Greens parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann spoke on Tuesday of manageable changes in the GEG, her liberal colleague Christian Dürr of the fact that she once turned the law upside down. Thomas Heilmann could not have put it better in his application.

Bundestag in the role of extras

Legislative texts that are not discussed in detail in Parliament and in the relevant specialist committees in a way that is comprehensible to all interested citizens – the procedure is not an invention of the traffic light. The grand coalition did not cover itself with constitutional glory when it came to the Corona legislation, for example. Parliament has long been left out. Massive encroachments on fundamental rights were issued by decree. The Union has no reason to celebrate itself today.

The loss of confidence that many people have in democracy should come as no surprise when the constitution is treated in this way. “They do whatever they want up there anyway” – this prejudice has been served very well in the past. The fact that the Federal Constitutional Court is now sending a wake-up call was urgently needed. At least there is one winner today: parliamentary democracy.