Dhe balance sheet was shattered. They were so proud of them: The SPD and the left in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had “started well”, said SPD state parliamentary group leader Julian Barlen after the first 100 days of the red-red coalition under Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD). The country is becoming “economically stronger, socially just and ecologically more sustainable,” Barlen said happily on Tuesday. Jeannine Rösler from the left faction praised “a new course”.
But on this course, the state government suffered shipwreck almost at the same time as its most prominent project. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) stopped the certification of Nord Stream 2 after the Russian breach of international law against Ukraine.
For months, Schwesig and the left had demanded the commissioning of the almost finished Baltic Sea pipeline against all misgivings. But now Schwesig had to give in after the certification stop: “This decision supports our state government,” she tweeted on Tuesday.
But not only the project sponsored by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and Schwesig’s attempts to position itself as a guarantor of a secure gas supply and socially acceptable heating costs have been slowed down. For the time being, dreams of a leading role for the federal state in energy policy have also been shattered.
Bad chances for the hydrogen plan
Because the pipeline should not only serve to bring natural gas to Europe as a bridging energy source. Rather, visions were also circulating in Schwerin, as part of a “Hydrogen Hanseatic League” founded in 2021, one day to route hydrogen produced in Russia, which is dubious from a climate protection perspective, through the pipeline to the German Baltic Sea coast. So now it looks according to a report by the news portal “T-Online” seems bad.
The Russia Day in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a lobbyist meeting held every two years, at which Nord Stream 2 AG acted as a “platinum sponsor” last year, has also become a problem. The State Chancellery wants to “put the plans for another Russia Day on hold”.
April 2021: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) visits the Nord Stream 2 gas landing station at the Lubmin industrial port
Source: PA/ dpa/
The future of the MV climate and environmental foundation founded by the state, which is largely financed by Nord Stream 2 AG and has the pipeline as a secondary economic purpose, is completely unclear. This foundation Transparency International and the Greens in the state parliament suspected of serious opacity, Schwesig on Twitter “asked to let their work rest”.
What that means is debatable. The managing director of the foundation, Christin Klinger, informed WELT that the “request from the state government” concerned “solely the economic business”. In view of the halt to the pipeline certification, the board of directors led by former Prime Minister Erwin Sellering (SPD) decided “for the time being to make no further efforts through commercial business operations in order to complete the remaining work – to a small extent – necessary to complete the contribute to the pipeline”.
According to Klinger, “there is still a corresponding mandate from the state parliament, which is firmly anchored in the statutes passed by the state parliament and therefore binds us as a foundation”. But “due to the latest developments” “this order has to be on hold”. But this does not apply “to the main task of the foundation,” said Klinger. Namely “to anchor the great task of the century, climate protection, in the consciousness of the broad majority of the population as of existential importance”. That is why the board of directors “decided to continue the foundation’s work in the area of public interest, which has been planned for decades, with great vigour”.
The foundation wants to use the 20 million euros available to it, which came from Nord Stream 2 AG, for various funding for educational and environmental projects.
Opposition wants to draw consequences from the debacle
The left in the state parliament does not formulate any objections to this. “We welcome the decision of the foundation’s board of directors not to make any further efforts to help with the remaining work to complete the infrastructure of Nord Stream 2,” said Daniel Seiffert, energy policy spokesman for the left-wing parliamentary group in the state parliament, WELT. “This corresponds to the request of the state government, which we support, to let the foundation’s work rest.”
The opposition wants more. “We are calling on the state government to clearly reject Nord Stream 2, Russian sponsorship events such as Russia Day and the dissolution of the Climate Foundation,” said FDP parliamentary group leader René Domke on Wednesday. The FDP, CDU and Greens have requested a special session of the state parliament and are currently working on a resolution on the consequences that the state should draw from the pipeline debacle. Whether the explicit demand for the dissolution of the foundation is made is open.
CDU parliamentary group leader Franz-Robert Liskow expresses himself a little more cautiously: “The climate foundation must now demonstrably stop its work,” said Liskow WELT. “Whether there can be a future for them at all depends crucially on the foundation finally disclosing what it is doing in a completely transparent manner. So far this has not happened. When there is clarity, it will have to be examined whether there is a perspective for the foundation or whether it can no longer have a future.”
It is clear, however, that the state government “must not allow Russia Day to take place again in the previously planned form”. Concrete consequences are necessary because the action of red-red must be “credible”. So far, the CDU considers “the state government to be driven because it apparently only changed its position under pressure from Berlin”.
In an interview with WELT, Greens parliamentary group leader Harald Terpe also calls for the Prime Minister to make specifications: “Ms. Schwesig must develop activities to get rid of this whole network,” said Terpe. “It can never be in Germany’s interest to become so dependent on Russia.”
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