When Robert Habeck boarded an Airbus ready to fly to Qatar in mid-March, the Federal Minister of Economics had no idea how much excitement there would be about this trip.

He probably didn't suspect it at the moment when he shook hands with the trade minister of the desert state.

But no sooner had the photo of Habeck, with his stooped posture and lowered gaze in front of Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Kasim al-Abdullah Al Thani, arrived in Germany than a storm of indignation broke out.

Julia Loehr

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Wanting no more gas from Russia's warmonger Vladimir Putin, but then bowing to another authoritarian regime in hopes of their gas?

The Greens were accused of double standards.

If Habeck hadn't been the protagonist but an observer, he might have said himself: Is it still okay, old man?

"Not in my backyard"

Courting for gas from Qatar is not the only point that appears contradictory in German energy and climate policy.

Not only tankers from the Persian Gulf are to dock at the liquid gas terminals that are now being built in northern Germany, but also those from the United States.

However, the Americans produce almost 80 percent of their gas using a technique that Germany does not want to use itself for fear of environmental damage: During fracking, a water-sand-chemical mixture is pressed into deep layers of rock to release the gas.

The same with electricity: the three remaining nuclear power plants should run at most a few months longer after the end of the year.

The Greens in particular do not want to fundamentally question the nuclear phase-out.

At the same time, Germany imported almost 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity from France last year – a country that generates two thirds of its electricity with nuclear power and does not want to change that either.

“Not in my backyard” is what real estate experts call the phenomenon that people want to keep unpleasant things away from them.

There are also many "nimbys" in energy policy.

All temporary

With its negative attitude towards fracking and nuclear power, isn't Germany making it too easy for itself if it also imports energy generated in this way?

Does the green conscience end at Germany's external borders?

Jürgen Trittin is on the phone, Green Party veteran and Federal Environment Minister from 1998 to 2005.

“Of course there are bitter contradictions at the moment.

But I think we have to stand by them," he says.

“Germany has a concept.

No other country is expanding renewables as quickly as we are.

We are thus securing the energy supply in Europe.”