Germany is Heading into a Recession Caused by Its Green Energy Policies, as the Country is Labelled the ‘Sick Man of Europe’
Germany’s economy is teetering on the edge of recession, with opposition leaders pointing fingers to the Government’s green energy policies as the culprit. The Mailhas the story.
Once one of the world’s strongest economies, Germany is now expected to have the worst performing economy of any leading nation in the world, according to stats from the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Friedrich Merz, the 67 year-old leader of the Christian Democrats opposition party, claims that this slump is a direct result of the Government’s overly bureaucratised green energy policies, which are being led by the Greens in coalition with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.
“Unfortunately, 2023 will be a year of recession,” Mr. Merz told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
“If the insane amount of bureaucracy isn’t stopped soon, if energy prices don’t fall quickly, then 2024 won’t be a good year either.”
The populist leader pledged to “lower the tax and levy burden on energy”, “immediately reconnect decommissioned nuclear power plants to the grid”, and “adopt a moratorium on bureaucracy”.
He elaborated, saying: “Not a single new law should trigger additional bureaucracy. That means, for example: We would stop the heating law. In this form, it is not only technologically flawed, but also sets in motion a huge new bureaucracy.”
The pledge came shortly before France’s President Emmanuel Macron openly disagreed with Germany’s current stance on nuclear power, claiming that neglecting the role of nuclear energy in the EU would be a “historic mistake”.
Mr. Merz is currently leading in the polls after his party adopted several anti-immigrant policies.
Meanwhile, the Government’s ratings have slumped in recent months. Nearly three quarters of Germans, 73%, are unhappy with the current coalition Government, according to an opinion poll published over the weekend.
The ratings downturn came as new figures revealed that Germany has remained the ‘sick man of Europe’ as its economy stagnated in the second quarter while the country battles an industrial slowdown and stubborn inflation.
The outlook for the nation long lauded as Europe’s industrial powerhouse is deteriorating, with its economy registering zero growth from April to June compared with the previous quarter, according to data from the federal statics agency Destatis.
The figures come as a major blow to Germany’s Government, which had boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year after a feared winter energy crunch failed to materialise.
Germany’s stagnating economy – which had fallen into recession earlier this year – is in stark contrast to Brexit Britain’s economy, which continues to see growth. The U.K.’s economy grew by 0.2% in the second quarter of the year, with June’s sunny weather encouraging Britons to eat out and spend more. …
Marcel Fratzscher, head of the Berlin-based DIW institute, says Germany’s problems are structural.
The country needs a “long-term transformation programme, with an investment drive, a broad (reduction of its bureaucracy) and strengthening of social systems”, he said in an analysis published over the summer.
Several concerns on the economic front are widely shared – uncertainty about energy costs in the medium term, cumbersome regulations, a lack of skilled labour and a slow shift to a digital economy.
And to make matters worse for Germany’s stagnating economy, business chiefs in June warned that the Government’s decision to shut down the last remaining power plants in favour of renewable energy would see critical industries ditch the country amid electricity shortages.
The head of energy firm RWE said he fears that Germany will face a shortage of electricity that will see prices in the already struggling country soar. …
German energy chiefs have blamed the country’s poor economic outlook on the Government’s green energy ‘disaster’ that has seen the last remaining nuclear power plants shut down. Instead, the focus is now on renewable energy supplies from solar and wind sites.
But the intermittent nature of these green energy sources, which leaves them susceptible to sudden drops during cloudy or windless periods, means Germany’s electricity system remains vulnerable to electricity shortages and price volatility.
Krebber warned that this could have a devastating impact on Germany’s industries that are trying in vain to prop up the country’s flailing economy. …
This is all playing into the hands of Germany’s far-right parties, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD)’s popularity surging in the polls over its criticism of what it calls a costly green agenda.
The enormous amount of money burnt on the great Corona-tion obviously cannot have anything to do with this, as this would paint all major political parties (with exception of the AfD which kept opposing everything-COVID) as equally guilty.
They are killing their own car industry – its largest single economic engine. They have cut off Putin’s energy supplies. A massive welfare state cannot be supported. They are invaded by millions of Musulmans and Africans. Their EU empire is falling apart. They hate themselves and their history. Germany like the US is committing suicide.
The EU grew out of the Adenauer/ Schuman attempt to intertwine the French and German coal and steel industries to such a degree that Germany wouldn’t ever again be able to fight a successful war against France. But don’t let reality distract you from the US propaganda you’re consuming in much too large quantities.
And Merkel’s decision to shut down nuclear power stations and her open door policy to immigrants? It’s almost as if she were an East German plotting the downfall of West Germany?
‘By phasing out nuclear power, Germany is committing itself to coal and gas because there is not always enough wind blowing or sun shining,’ said Rainer Klute, head of pro-nuclear non-profit association Nuklearia.
The German government has dismissed such concerns, arguing that thanks to Europe’s integrated electricity network, Germany can import energy when needed while remaining a net exporter.
In other words, the political approach of the current German government for dealing with the fact that there is not always enough wind blowing or sun shining is Thankfully, other countries haven’t adopted our mad energy policies and hence, we can buy electricity from them when we need it! Tacit admission that nothing of this is really about Saving the planet! as coal- and gas-fired powerplants in Poland (example) are surely just as bad as such plants in German when viewed from that angle.
Another straight lie. Where in Europe is going to have loads of spare wind electricity with a big weather pattern over Europe and no wind? Germany is in the middle of Europe, Usually all the wind over Europe is much less than demand.
They’re banking on other countries not going 100% renewable. In particular, on France remaining mostly nuclear so that they can import energy generated in this way without their voters being confronted with the stark reality that nuclear power stations exist. Aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn, as the German saying goes.
[Not in front of our eyes anymore! No worries!]
LaptopMaestro
2 years ago
Never forget that merkel is an Ossi with connections to the Stasi.
The comment I was replying to suggests that someone errneously believes that Merkel is still the German head of government but she isn’t and her CDU-SPD coalition got replaced by a SPD-FDP-Greens coalition nominally led by Olaf Scholz from the SPD. But the Greens are controlling the most important ministries and are really the only party which has shown meaningful political initiative so far. And trust me, this matters a lot, as they’re a lot madder than their predecessors were.
I’ve been reading a fair amount about Germany lately and none of it positive, regardless of subject matter. Do they have any sort of actual ‘Justice system’ or is it strictly an ‘injustice system’ over there I wonder…? Because there sure as hell appears to be no deterrent for the scumbags who commit these abhorrent crimes. Just two examples; ”Despite 34-year-old Berhan S. breaking into the Protestant school in the multicultural Berlin neighborhood of Neukölln and stabbing two little girls, his crime will go unpunished. Instead, the courts have ruled that due to “mental illness,” he cannot be held responsible for the stabbing case, in which two 8-year-old girls nearly lost their lives after suffering multiple wounds to their necks and chests. In the Berlin public prosecutor’s office’s “preliminary psychiatric report,” it stated that Berhan S. “was in a psychotic state at the time of the crime due to a mental illness,” which was first reported by BZ. Remix News reported on the stabbing in May when it first occurred. The man scaled the fence of the Christian school and stabbed the two girls while they were playing table tennis as 30 children in the schoolyard looked on in horror.” https://rmx.news/crime/germany-man-who-brutally-stabbed-2-children-in-berlin-schoolyard-has-case-dropped-will-see-no-jail-time/ ”Following the… Read more »
Foreign-born violent criminals in Germany always end up having mental problems which stop them from being put through a real criminal trial. This has two nice advantages:
1) They can be locked-up for life in a psychiatric institution (Sicherheitsverwahrung).
2) They’re all just isolated and unpredictable cases and nobody must answer inconvenient questions about them being in Germany to begin with.
Antifascism is the German state religion. And one of its core tenets is that only Germans are capable of doing evil. Merely questioning whether foreigners are really always saintly beings will cause the German political establishment to come down on the perpetrator like a ton of bricks. That’s called Ausländerfeindlichkeit (hostility towards foreigners) and only Nazis do that.
Sweden has similar issues. Apparently criticising immigration policy or multicultural dogma can get you arrested. ———A good book on this stuff is by Bruce Bauer called “While Europe Slept”.
Interesting bit about the second crime: All of this was recorded by CCTV security cameras. While this makes prosecution much easier (due to the rapist being a foreign asylum seeker because of persecution of gays in his home country, he’ll doubtlessly become a heavily traumatized victim of … with mental health problem which prevent him from being punished in due time), it’s an excellent point against security by increased surveillance. There’s was doubtlessly someone on shift who should have checked the camera recordings at least every once in a while but just couldn’t be arsed.
“It’s time we all became revolutionaries because the truth is that it is not the climate crisis that is the biggest threat to our wellbeing, but the climate crisis alarmists who want to remove the last vestiges of our freedom and plunge us into a never-ending Dark Age.”
The head of energy firm RWE said he fears that Germany will face a shortage of electricity that will see prices in the already struggling country soar. …
Don’t celebrate too much. This will be bad for us as well, as we rely on the inter-connectors with Europe during dark windless periods. More demand from Germany will impact us price-wise.
Ah I see, so the German government are wanting to fill the skills shortage in certain sectors with migrants so they intend making it faster for these foreigners to be granted their German citizenship. This will have the inevitable knock-on effect of skewing the crime figures as more criminals will be reported in the press as ”German” rather than report honestly their migrant/ethnic status.* *I am aware that likely the majority of immigrants do not inevitably go on to commit crimes, however secondly, I am also aware that the migrant/ethnic status of criminals is more often than not covered up by the press presently anyway. ”Germany plans to ease citizenship rules under legislation approved Wednesday by the Cabinet, a project that the government contends will bolster the integration of immigrants and help an economy that is struggling with a shortage of skilled workers. The legislation passed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers still requires approval from the lower house of parliament, where the socially liberal three-party coalition has a comfortable majority. It could take effect in January, depending on how quickly that happens. The government plans to make people eligible for citizenship after five years in Germany, or three… Read more »
Geoff Cox
2 years ago
This is only anecdotal I know, but having spent time with a bunch of middle class Germans in the spring, I definitely got the impression that the German post-war economic miracle was well and truly over. They were still very much in favour of the EU and were very obedient when it came to covid bs. They were also quick to distance themselves and dismiss the AfD, but they were also complaining about loads of other things. Also, the roads were in a dreadful state.
Mock opposition party. The AfD supports absolutely everything German parties are supposed to support and it has regular internal purges to clear out people suspected of far-rightism. They’re just a relative newcomer (2015) at the great parliamentary banquet table where the neverending, taxpayer-paid feasting is going on and the older parties still think they’ll be able to crowd them out forever.
…it’s odd to me that throughout the entire article, it’s not mentioned that Germany imported cheaper fuel from Russia prior to 2022…..and is now paying much more to source the same amounts of energy? Sanctions, which have played a major role in this, aren’t mentioned at all!? Neither is the criminal sabotage of the Nordstream Pipeline…. Perhaps that’s why the public are unhappy, because they haven’t chosen to whitewash it from existence? Cheaper imports of Gas, Coal, oil and Diesel from Russia to Germany have fallen by up to 90% since 2022 …..and according to Germany’s foreign trade office (BAFA)… Imports of natural gas have increased by around 200%…and unlike this article they do reflect on the great part that sanctions have played ….….. Accordingly BAFA state that as sanctions played a large part in the supply disruptions it propelled gas prices to record highs….with Germany’s import bill increasing to nearly 50 billion euros…compared to 17.1 billion euros..in 2021…. A terajoule of energy (abbreviated as a TJ, is a unit of measurement of energy consumption) was up by nearly 300% year on year..and is now more than six times the price of August 2021… The likelihood of energy prices falling… Read more »
The government understands this all too well. They just obviously prefer structual reforms and more immigration as pretend-solution to the problems they created under orders from their foreign overlords. Structural reforms – we already had that one when Schröder was chancellor – is code language for Shrink the welfare state. My guess for the target would be Get rid of the obligation to pay pensions to the post-babyboomer generation by raising pension age so much that people can be expected to die before the reach it (at least 70 – 75, 80 starts to enter the discussion).
Bizarre. ———You don’t get much more absurd than plastering a beautiful country in 30 thousand turbines and wanting that number up to 55 thousand to pretend your saving the planet. You also don’t get much more absurd than dropping Nuclear Energy because of the Tsunami that caused Fukushima. That tidal wave was caused by an earthquake in an area of the Pacific that is riddled with volcano’s in the Pacific Ring of Fire. But there are no earthquakes in Germany, so what we have here is the perfect example of not letting a good crisis go to waste.—— It must be clear to even the most pessimistic planet saver that wind cannot power industrial society. But as we know from Klaus Schwab “Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about” when he was referring to the collapse of industrial society being necessary to save the world. “Energiewende” (energy transition) is a cautionary tale. But here in the UK we choose to ignore that and are running headlong into the same agenda driven deliberate removal of affordable reliable energy and replacing it with unaffordable unreliable energy. Which is why we see stuff like the other day where we were being encouraged… Read more »
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The enormous amount of money burnt on the great Corona-tion obviously cannot have anything to do with this, as this would paint all major political parties (with exception of the AfD which kept opposing everything-COVID) as equally guilty.
“Green energy” is a wonderful way to transfer wealth from the poor the billionaires
They are killing their own car industry – its largest single economic engine. They have cut off Putin’s energy supplies. A massive welfare state cannot be supported. They are invaded by millions of Musulmans and Africans. Their EU empire is falling apart. They hate themselves and their history. Germany like the US is committing suicide.
The EU grew out of the Adenauer/ Schuman attempt to intertwine the French and German coal and steel industries to such a degree that Germany wouldn’t ever again be able to fight a successful war against France. But don’t let reality distract you from the US propaganda you’re consuming in much too large quantities.
Not just Germany, but most of Europe is Sleepwalking.
And Merkel’s decision to shut down nuclear power stations and her open door policy to immigrants? It’s almost as if she were an East German plotting the downfall of West Germany?
Deserves a second comment:
‘By phasing out nuclear power, Germany is committing itself to coal and gas because there is not always enough wind blowing or sun shining,’ said Rainer Klute, head of pro-nuclear non-profit association Nuklearia.
The German government has dismissed such concerns, arguing that thanks to Europe’s integrated electricity network, Germany can import energy when needed while remaining a net exporter.
In other words, the political approach of the current German government for dealing with the fact that there is not always enough wind blowing or sun shining is Thankfully, other countries haven’t adopted our mad energy policies and hence, we can buy electricity from them when we need it! Tacit admission that nothing of this is really about Saving the planet! as coal- and gas-fired powerplants in Poland (example) are surely just as bad as such plants in German when viewed from that angle.
Another straight lie. Where in Europe is going to have loads of spare wind electricity with a big weather pattern over Europe and no wind? Germany is in the middle of Europe, Usually all the wind over Europe is much less than demand.
They’re banking on other countries not going 100% renewable. In particular, on France remaining mostly nuclear so that they can import energy generated in this way without their voters being confronted with the stark reality that nuclear power stations exist. Aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn, as the German saying goes.
[Not in front of our eyes anymore! No worries!]
Never forget that merkel is an Ossi with connections to the Stasi.
Merkel had reached the end of legal shelflife of a German chancellor with the last general election. She’s now in retirement.
Do you think that matters?
Define matters.
The comment I was replying to suggests that someone errneously believes that Merkel is still the German head of government but she isn’t and her CDU-SPD coalition got replaced by a SPD-FDP-Greens coalition nominally led by Olaf Scholz from the SPD. But the Greens are controlling the most important ministries and are really the only party which has shown meaningful political initiative so far. And trust me, this matters a lot, as they’re a lot madder than their predecessors were.
I’ve been reading a fair amount about Germany lately and none of it positive, regardless of subject matter. Do they have any sort of actual ‘Justice system’ or is it strictly an ‘injustice system’ over there I wonder…? Because there sure as hell appears to be no deterrent for the scumbags who commit these abhorrent crimes. Just two examples; ”Despite 34-year-old Berhan S. breaking into the Protestant school in the multicultural Berlin neighborhood of Neukölln and stabbing two little girls, his crime will go unpunished. Instead, the courts have ruled that due to “mental illness,” he cannot be held responsible for the stabbing case, in which two 8-year-old girls nearly lost their lives after suffering multiple wounds to their necks and chests. In the Berlin public prosecutor’s office’s “preliminary psychiatric report,” it stated that Berhan S. “was in a psychotic state at the time of the crime due to a mental illness,” which was first reported by BZ. Remix News reported on the stabbing in May when it first occurred. The man scaled the fence of the Christian school and stabbed the two girls while they were playing table tennis as 30 children in the schoolyard looked on in horror.” https://rmx.news/crime/germany-man-who-brutally-stabbed-2-children-in-berlin-schoolyard-has-case-dropped-will-see-no-jail-time/ ”Following the… Read more »
Foreign-born violent criminals in Germany always end up having mental problems which stop them from being put through a real criminal trial. This has two nice advantages:
1) They can be locked-up for life in a psychiatric institution (Sicherheitsverwahrung).
2) They’re all just isolated and unpredictable cases and nobody must answer inconvenient questions about them being in Germany to begin with.
Antifascism is the German state religion. And one of its core tenets is that only Germans are capable of doing evil. Merely questioning whether foreigners are really always saintly beings will cause the German political establishment to come down on the perpetrator like a ton of bricks. That’s called Ausländerfeindlichkeit (hostility towards foreigners) and only Nazis do that.
Sweden has similar issues. Apparently criticising immigration policy or multicultural dogma can get you arrested. ———A good book on this stuff is by Bruce Bauer called “While Europe Slept”.
Interesting bit about the second crime: All of this was recorded by CCTV security cameras. While this makes prosecution much easier (due to the rapist being a foreign asylum seeker because of persecution of gays in his home country, he’ll doubtlessly become a heavily traumatized victim of … with mental health problem which prevent him from being punished in due time), it’s an excellent point against security by increased surveillance. There’s was doubtlessly someone on shift who should have checked the camera recordings at least every once in a while but just couldn’t be arsed.
Compare these two: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electricity-data/chart/conventional_power_generation/21.08.2023/28.08.2023/today/ and https://grid.iamkate.com/ Note that roughly half of the generation in Germany is coal, mainly lignite as well. There is a long way to go to get rid of that source there. Of course, some might say that lignite is a secure, domestic fuel compared with the alternatives.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-change-cult-and-the-war-on-the-mind-4-2/
“It’s time we all became revolutionaries because the truth is that it is not the climate crisis that is the biggest threat to our wellbeing, but the climate crisis alarmists who want to remove the last vestiges of our freedom and plunge us into a never-ending Dark Age.”
Don’t celebrate too much. This will be bad for us as well, as we rely on the inter-connectors with Europe during dark windless periods. More demand from Germany will impact us price-wise.
Ah I see, so the German government are wanting to fill the skills shortage in certain sectors with migrants so they intend making it faster for these foreigners to be granted their German citizenship. This will have the inevitable knock-on effect of skewing the crime figures as more criminals will be reported in the press as ”German” rather than report honestly their migrant/ethnic status.* *I am aware that likely the majority of immigrants do not inevitably go on to commit crimes, however secondly, I am also aware that the migrant/ethnic status of criminals is more often than not covered up by the press presently anyway. ”Germany plans to ease citizenship rules under legislation approved Wednesday by the Cabinet, a project that the government contends will bolster the integration of immigrants and help an economy that is struggling with a shortage of skilled workers. The legislation passed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers still requires approval from the lower house of parliament, where the socially liberal three-party coalition has a comfortable majority. It could take effect in January, depending on how quickly that happens. The government plans to make people eligible for citizenship after five years in Germany, or three… Read more »
This is only anecdotal I know, but having spent time with a bunch of middle class Germans in the spring, I definitely got the impression that the German post-war economic miracle was well and truly over. They were still very much in favour of the EU and were very obedient when it came to covid bs. They were also quick to distance themselves and dismiss the AfD, but they were also complaining about loads of other things. Also, the roads were in a dreadful state.
How wonderful it must be to actually have an ‘opposition’ party!
Mock opposition party. The AfD supports absolutely everything German parties are supposed to support and it has regular internal purges to clear out people suspected of far-rightism. They’re just a relative newcomer (2015) at the great parliamentary banquet table where the neverending, taxpayer-paid feasting is going on and the older parties still think they’ll be able to crowd them out forever.
…it’s odd to me that throughout the entire article, it’s not mentioned that Germany imported cheaper fuel from Russia prior to 2022…..and is now paying much more to source the same amounts of energy? Sanctions, which have played a major role in this, aren’t mentioned at all!? Neither is the criminal sabotage of the Nordstream Pipeline…. Perhaps that’s why the public are unhappy, because they haven’t chosen to whitewash it from existence? Cheaper imports of Gas, Coal, oil and Diesel from Russia to Germany have fallen by up to 90% since 2022 …..and according to Germany’s foreign trade office (BAFA)… Imports of natural gas have increased by around 200%…and unlike this article they do reflect on the great part that sanctions have played ….….. Accordingly BAFA state that as sanctions played a large part in the supply disruptions it propelled gas prices to record highs….with Germany’s import bill increasing to nearly 50 billion euros…compared to 17.1 billion euros..in 2021…. A terajoule of energy (abbreviated as a TJ, is a unit of measurement of energy consumption) was up by nearly 300% year on year..and is now more than six times the price of August 2021… The likelihood of energy prices falling… Read more »
The government understands this all too well. They just obviously prefer structual reforms and more immigration as pretend-solution to the problems they created under orders from their foreign overlords. Structural reforms – we already had that one when Schröder was chancellor – is code language for Shrink the welfare state. My guess for the target would be Get rid of the obligation to pay pensions to the post-babyboomer generation by raising pension age so much that people can be expected to die before the reach it (at least 70 – 75, 80 starts to enter the discussion).
Bizarre. ———You don’t get much more absurd than plastering a beautiful country in 30 thousand turbines and wanting that number up to 55 thousand to pretend your saving the planet. You also don’t get much more absurd than dropping Nuclear Energy because of the Tsunami that caused Fukushima. That tidal wave was caused by an earthquake in an area of the Pacific that is riddled with volcano’s in the Pacific Ring of Fire. But there are no earthquakes in Germany, so what we have here is the perfect example of not letting a good crisis go to waste.—— It must be clear to even the most pessimistic planet saver that wind cannot power industrial society. But as we know from Klaus Schwab “Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about” when he was referring to the collapse of industrial society being necessary to save the world. “Energiewende” (energy transition) is a cautionary tale. But here in the UK we choose to ignore that and are running headlong into the same agenda driven deliberate removal of affordable reliable energy and replacing it with unaffordable unreliable energy. Which is why we see stuff like the other day where we were being encouraged… Read more »
More evidence, if it were needed, that Brexit was a mistake and our economy would now be soaring, just like Germany… oh.