Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) has expressed dissatisfaction with his party’s role in the traffic light coalition. “The SPD must be the strong social force in the federal government, that is its role and that is what people expect. Not only I, but all SPD Prime Ministers would like the SPD to assume this role more strongly again,” said Woidke in the Interview with “Zeit Online”.
In the debate about the controversial planned heating law, he would have welcomed it if the SPD had said in the federal government: “This far and no further.” At the same time, Woidke warned in an interview that the AfD was exploiting the mistakes of the federal government.
The SPD head of government criticized the planned heating law and said: “Anyone who loses sensitivity to people, who no longer knows what makes them tick, shouldn’t be surprised if people turn away from the established parties – and democracy is damaged .”
Woidke: Draft law poorly communicated
The Building Energy Act is an example of the lack of sensitivity to what people can and cannot be expected to do. “If every social component is missing in a draft law and the communication is so miserable that Grandma Frieda has to think that she now has to have a heat pump installed in her 80-year-old house and also give it thermal insulation and pay a total of 150,000 euros for it, then it’s devastating.” Woidke continues: “The signal that you send out is: I don’t care how you deal with my regulations, climate protection is above everything else. And if you become impoverished, that’s secondary.” This signal still contributes to the AfD’s polls today.
Woidke left an approval of the law in its previous form open in the Bundesrat. “To this day it’s not clear how much support someone gets who has to have a new heating system installed in their 80 to 100-year-old house.” Woidke said “Zeit Online”: “I will only agree to the law if there are clear answers to the many social questions.”
