It was only a few days ago that Economics Minister Robert Habeck experienced something like his Willy moment: he appealed to the population to refrain from burning fossil fuels.

"Every kilowatt hour of energy saved helps," the Green politician warned on Wednesday when he called out early warning level one of the gas emergency plan - and combined this with the appeal to companies and households "to help us, to help Germany, that they help Ukraine if they save gas or energy altogether”.

Ralph Bollman

Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of business and “Money & More” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.

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Today's Vice Chancellor was very reminiscent of the Prime Minister of yore, Willy Brandt, who made similar appeals to the public almost fifty years ago.

Back then, it was the fall of 1973, Egypt and Syria had just attacked the state of Israel, and the West was secretly delivering weapons via the Azores.

In turn, Arab countries weaponized their energy exports by curbing oil production.

The allegations are similar to those half a century ago

At that time, the Germans were already suspected of undermining the common line of the West with regard to economic interests - but they could not avoid reducing their energy consumption.

This was done on the one hand by the austerity appeals, on the other hand by state coercive measures such as car-free Sundays or a temporary speed limit of one hundred kilometers per hour on motorways.

The yield was modest: Gasoline consumption fell by around 10 percent for a short period of time, but then rose very quickly to new heights.

The Bonn macroeconomist Christian Bayer, who is also a member of the scientific advisory board of Habeck's ministry, considers the Willy path to be so unpromising that he immediately contradicted the department head on Twitter.

"Pure appeals to save are just as inadequate instruments as a state, planned economy gas shutdown would be harmful," he said the next day on the phone.

"It is more appropriate to solve the shortage problem via price signals." From Bayer's point of view, the tax cut for petrol and diesel is exactly the wrong message: "A tank discount is poison."

“No one in their right mind can want shutdowns”

That is the question at stake at the moment.

Everyone fears an emergency, level three of the emergency plan, which provides for compulsory state shutdowns in the gas network.

The Federal Network Agency would then have to decide which industrial companies would still supply them with energy and which not.

The question is whether there is another way, whether voluntary saving or the power of high prices can reduce consumption so much in advance that no lines have to be switched off by decree from above.

Whether the vile power of the market is more effective than noble commitments to renunciation, even if the latter feels better.

And whether the new inflation records might even be useful because they help discourage people from buying expensive energy.

A party friend of the minister sits in the Federal Network Agency

Klaus Müller is the man who is now at the center of this debate.

The party friend and North German compatriot of the Economics Minister has been the new president of the network agency for a month.

His job has changed even more radically than Habeck's: Actually, Müller, who was the head of the consumer centers for the last eight years, was supposed to protect customers from the greed of the big corporations - not only in energy, but also in the postal and telecommunications sectors.

Now he has to ensure that the gas flows at all in an emergency.