Actually, Markus Söder would have gotten on the plane on Sunday. “A perspective journey for Bavaria’s energy security until 2030,” Söder (CSU) announced. Then Corona also caught Bavaria’s Prime Minister. His trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia has been cancelled, but his plan is in place: “It is necessary to become independent of Russia when it comes to energy,” Söder tweeted on Sunday from isolation. Two days earlier, he had justified his travel intentions as follows: “We want to be a door opener for southern Germany and are looking for partners for our own hydrogen infrastructure. Southern pipelines are also needed for long-term energy security.” Söder is currently talking about how worthy of protection the south of the Federal Republic is. And about the fact that Bavaria is particularly threatened by the energy crisis. However, whether that adequately describes reality is debatable.
Critics say the prime minister is presenting himself as a fighter against a federal government hostile to Bavaria, which doesn’t even exist. “If you now devalue hydropower like the federal government and only promote wind power, you put the south at a disadvantage,” Söder recently complained about the plans that Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) has for renewable energies. Incidentally, Söder speculated loudly about the “tactics” and “strategy” of the Berlin traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP to deliberately disadvantage the south. All bluff? Well, a few days ago, Habeck’s ministry of all things fueled the concerns of some in the south of the republic. A spokeswoman warned that a German gas embargo against Russia would have “varying regional consequences.” One could understand it in such a way that Söder is right when he portrays Bavaria as more at risk.
“Bayern is physically hanging on the Russian rope”
What is certain is that the industrially strong south of Germany is particularly dependent on Russian gas. “North Rhine-Westphalia consumes the gas from Holland, northern Germany more Norwegian gas, Bavaria is physically dependent on the Russian line,” said recently Detlef Fischer, Managing Director of the Bavarian Energy and Water Industry Association (VBEW). Around 90 percent of the natural gas consumed in Bavaria comes from Russia – Prime Minister Söder now wants to break free of this dependency because Russia is attacking Ukraine.
The problem he sees is that while Federal Minister Habeck now wants to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) that is to arrive by ship in the northern German ports, Bavaria has neither a sea port nor are there lines that bring the LNG directly to the south could. Instead, gas imports in Bavaria are also technically geared towards Russia. This means: the main direction of the lines and pipelines is from east to west. There are hardly any from other directions to Bavaria – accordingly not from the north. “Our great concern is that the federal government will only plan energy deliveries via northern Germany in the future,” says Söder against this background. He calls for southern pipelines for gas and hydrogen, for example from Trieste in Italy to Bavaria.
From an expert’s point of view, Söder’s fear that Bavaria could be cut off from the gas supply in the event of an embargo is not very valid. In such a scenario, the so-called “gas emergency plan” of the federal government from September 2019 takes effect. In addition to an early warning level, which Federal Minister of Economics Habeck recently proclaimed because of the war in Ukraine, this plan also includes an alert level and the emergency level. The latter is announced when much less natural gas arrives in Germany than is needed here.
In an emergency, the Federal Network Agency takes over
“In such an emergency, the Federal Network Agency, together with the network operators as a so-called federal load distributor, takes over the distribution of the natural gas that is then still available,” says a high-ranking representative of the energy industry in Bavaria, who wants to remain anonymous because of the politically explosive nature of the issue. “This is then an absolute deficiency management with massive restrictions for all areas and far-reaching economic effects,” says the expert. “But it should at least be fair” between the federal states in the north and in the south. Especially since it is stipulated by law that certain consumer groups, social institutions and private households, for example, have priority over others.
Robert Habeck’s Federal Ministry of Economics is also trying to clarify when asked. One sticks to the fact that a gas embargo has different consequences in the different regions of Germany. The fact that liquid gas arrives in federal states with a coast does not mean “that only these northern German states are supplied with it,” says a spokeswoman. And further: “So far, gas has come from pipelines, most of which have not landed in the south, and here too there has been a delivery to southern German storage facilities.”
Prime Minister Söder still wants to be “active alongside the federal government” in the search for partnerships that will secure Bavaria’s energy supply in the long term via southern pipelines. The virus has now slowed him down a bit. A spokeswoman for the State Chancellery spoke of minimal cold symptoms at the weekend. The prime minister, she said, had “a bit of a cold.”