Deutschland Kohleausstieg: Bundesregierung plant Milliardengeschenke für die Kohleindustrie

The cabinet's draft for the coal phase-out law is in place: coal companies will receive billions in subsidies and a new power plant, and private households will lose their money. That should split society further.
by Susan Bonath

Subsidies in the billions to the corporations plus a new power plant, one-sided burden on private households and further spreading of the environmental problems: A part of the coal commission recently drove the barricades. Last week, eight of the 28 members wrote that the coalition had abandoned the coal compromise it had reached with the countries in favor of the corporations.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Berlin, Germany, December 18, 2019.
Read more: Finance minister promises billions for coal exit
With their statement, they asked the federal government to redirect. This "frivolously gambled away a social peace that had been agreed," the former Commissioner Barbara Praetorius told the media. It is important, she emphasized, to all possible financial interests - just not climate protection.

50 billion euros in subsidies for capital

It is about new changes in the draft coal phase-out law, which the federal cabinet wants to approve on January 29. The economy is expected to get the coal phase out by 2038. The Federal Government wants to sweeten this with gigantic sums from the tax pot: a total of almost 50 billion euros are to flow.

According to Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD), the planned "compensation" for the corporations alone amounts to 4.35 billion euros - 2.6 billion of them go to West German and 1.75 billion to East German coal companies. In addition, the federal government has planned more than 40 billion euros as so-called structural aid for the restructuring of the economy.

LEAG should collect 1.75 billion - for nothing

According to a report by Spiegel on January 24, however, 1.75 billion euros alone will flow to the LEAG group (Lausitz Energie Bergbau AG) - for an alleged premature closure of the Jänschwalde, Boxberg and Schwarze Pumpe power plants.

According to the magazine, however, there can be no talk of confidential business plans in advance. The amount of lignite that is still to be converted into electricity has only been reduced from 867 to 854 million tons. The LEAG would therefore be compensated with tax money for a coal phase-out that it had already announced for economic reasons and would have taken place anyway.

Datteln 4: New power plant for NRW despite exit plans

The exit plans also do not mean that no new coal-fired power plants will go online in Germany. The controversial coal-fired power plant "Datteln 4" is scheduled to start operating in North Rhine-Westphalia this summer.

It was built on the piles for over ten years. Local residents, environmentalists and courts had repeatedly stopped construction. According to various calculations, the expected additional emissions are between 10 and 14 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). The power plant is operated by the listed group Uniper SE, a spin-off from the energy giant E.ON.

Datteln 4 is the only coal-fired power plant that is still starting up in Western Europe. In Germany, 19 power plants are expected to shut down coal-fired power generation before 2030 and 11 more afterwards.

The Staudinger Uniper coal-fired power plant in Großkrotzenburg, Germany, 13 February 2019
Read more: Agreement on coal exit is imminent: it will be expensive for taxpayers
Can-phrase without effect

Originally, the federal government announced that, in addition to the mega-subsidies to the profiteers, it would also like to spend another two billion euros from 2020 in order to keep electricity prices "stable". The Ministry of Environment had worked out, among other things, that at least such a sum was necessary.

First, the following: These would also be hidden subsidies to secure the return of the companies. Instead of directly from private households, the money would flow to the corporations via the tax pot. After all, it could have given poorer people access to electricity. It was only at the beginning of this year that prices in Germany rose by an average of six, in some regions by more than ten percent.

Probably because the federal government is giving away enough other subsidies to the coal industry, the recent amendment to the bill has moved it away from aid for affordable electricity. Instead of the promise to relieve the burden on private households, the draft bill now only states that a subsidy for the transmission system charges can be granted from 2023 - an empty phrase without effect.

Expected price increase: industrial lobby fears slump in yield

The goal declared by the federal government itself was to keep the German economy competitive. The most competitive is whoever exploits his employees the most. Rinsing the profits of corporate owners and major shareholders in the pocket is the purpose of contract work. However, these facts do not change the environmental crisis produced by this type of economy and the scientific facts. It is these seemingly insoluble and often misunderstood contradictions that divide society.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Brussels, Belgium, December 11, 2019.
Read more: The "Green Deal" Ursula von der Leyens: 100 billion euros in climate aid for poor EU countries
Contradictions require a fundamental rethink

However, fundamental contradictions, such as jobs and exploitation on the one hand, and the environmental crisis on the other, cannot be resolved within the capitalist mode of production. Anyone who does not want to destroy the planet to such an extent that it will be uninhabitable for the majority of people must rethink radically. So it is necessary to think beyond the current system.

Basically, it is about the ownership and related power relationships. As long as the economy belongs to a few profiteers and the large mass is dependent on wages and has to struggle for their profits, it will not be possible to switch the production from profit-driven to demand-oriented and ecologically sustainable.

Because even if the coal phase-out in capitalism should succeed within the next decades, then not only at the expense of the "little people". The principle of maximizing profit and the associated need for quantitative growth would also continue to exist - apart from the individual interests served by the state in the greatest possible returns.

This leads to a conclusion: goals that are in the interests of all people can only be implemented against the interests of the owners and those exercising power. Cotton balls should not help here any more than threats and hatred against environmental activists and scientists or the election of authoritarian governments. Time and environmental degradation cannot be turned back.

RT Deutsch strives for a wide range of opinions. Guest contributions and opinion articles do not have to reflect the editorial staff's point of view.

More on the subject - heated mood: coal miners protest against "end of terrain"

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Tags: energy, money, coal, coal exit, Olaf Scholz, environment, federal government, Germany, politics in Germany, Susan Bonath
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