Climate-conscious Christian Democrats pressure Merz with legal expert report

Rollbacks in climate protection are “unconstitutional” and therefore impossible to implement, a group within the party of Germany’s future chancellor warned on Monday, citing a report by top constitutional law experts.

Thomas Heilmann, chairman of the centre-right bloc’s KlimaUnion group, presented a report compiled by two leading German constitutional law experts, commissioned by KlimaUnion.

According to the document, Germany’s future climate policy cannot be shaped by legislation that leads to a deterioration of existing climate protection measures.

Existing climate protection measures can only be replaced by a new measure that is scientifically proven to be just as effective, while the removal of a protection measure without an adequate replacement is not possible, Heilmann explained.

Facelift of ‘heating bill’ possible

“This means the Heating bill cannot simply be abolished,” Heilmann said.

In the election campaign, Merz’s Christian Democrats promised to ‘abolish’ the 2023 Buildings Energy Act, known as the ‘Heating Bill’ (GEG), which requires the phase-out of fossil-fueled central heating in favour of heat pumps or district heating.

The party’s KlimaUnion faction wants to keep the law but proposes a facelift in the form of ‘debureaucratisation’.

Asked whether the law could be replaced by emission trading certificates, Heilmann said: “Yes, but then their prices have to be so high they create a steering effect – which has to be scientifically proven beforehand”.

No implications for debt-funded investment deal

Heilmann held the Berlin press conference five days after KlimaUnion shared the report with all members of parliament “except for the far-right AfD”, he said.

At that point, Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz was still negotiating with the Greens to win their support for a debt-financed €500 billion investment package that requires a constitutional amendment.

Heilmann insisted the report had been commissioned in January and was due to be presented on the eve of coalition talks, but its increased relevance in the context of recent events was “completely unforeseeable” at the time.

According to Heilmann, a lawyer by profession, the constitutional amendment to be passed on Tuesday is legal and “purely declaratory” – a legal view disputed by some other MPs and German experts on constitutional law.

[DE]