The traffic light coalition has refrained from convening the Bundestag for a special session during the summer break to pass the heating law. Instead, the draft should only be discussed in September in the second and third reading.
The traffic light coalition actually wanted to finally pass the heating law in the Bundestag on Friday this week, on the last possible date before the summer break. Specialist politicians and faction leaders from the SPD, Greens and FDP had been negotiating the law behind closed doors for weeks. The revised draft law was only presented at the end of last week, and a hearing in the Bundestag Committee for Climate Protection and Energy took place on Monday.
On Wednesday evening, the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) granted the application of the Berlin CDU MP Thomas Heilmann. He saw his rights as a member of parliament being violated because of the haste in the legislative process. The BVerfG did not deal with the content of the law, but only with the parliamentary procedure and decided that the second and third reading of the law may no longer be carried out in the current week.
The law stipulates that newly installed heating systems should primarily be operated with renewable energies. The traffic light coalition fought for a long time about the precise form of the law.