In the spring of 1998 Annalena Baerbock was not yet a member of the Greens.

In March they demanded that the price of a liter of petrol should rise to five marks over the next ten years.

At that time the liter cost about 1.50 DM. There was great excitement in the party because the state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt was re-elected in April and some Greens feared losses because of the gasoline price decision.

So it happened, the Greens did not return to the Landtag.

Subsequently, green opponents of the decision announced that it would not appear in the program for the federal election in autumn.

In this case, the Greens did so well that they became part of a federal government for the first time.

Eckart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

    But that's all yesterday's fuel.

    Because compared to the dispute at the time, the current fuel price debate is a cuddle unit.

    The Greens chairman and candidate for Chancellor Baerbock, in accordance with the draft of her party's election manifesto, called for the price of petrol to be increased by 16 cents per liter.

    Six cents of that were added at the beginning of the year through the introduction of a CO2 price on gasoline, she said.

    That is the result of the resolutions of the federal government.

    The Greens want to proceed a little faster than the government when it comes to CO2 pricing and want to introduce a price of 60 euros per ton as early as 2023, which would also have an impact on gasoline prices.

    According to the Green plans, the price of a liter of gasoline would increase by that 16 cents by 2023.

    There is no criticism of the actions of their chairmen from the Greens, the co-chairman Robert Habeck had already made the 16-cent proposal. Loud protest comes mainly from the Social Democrats. The prominent leaders of the comrades run against Baerbock as if they had pulled the 5-mark decision of 1998 out of their pockets again. Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz hit the Green leader via Bild-Zeitung. "Anyone who just keeps turning the fuel price screw shows how indifferent they are to the needs of the citizens."

    The party chairman Saskia Esken and general secretary Lars Klingbeil threw themselves in the way with the appropriate style on behalf of the low-wage earners Baerbock.

    The fact that the Greens want to return the additional costs caused by CO2 pricing to low-wage earners through “energy money” played no role in this attack.

    Above all, there is criticism from the CSU

    From the Union part of the federal government, criticism came mainly from the CSU, for example from Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer and Secretary General Markus Blume. The CDU remained calm or at least very factual. The deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group, Andreas Jung, had already campaigned for a faster increase in CO2 prices in mid-May. The spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), Steffen Seibert, recalled on Friday that the coalition partners Union and SPD had made the decisions on the CO2 price together.

    The chairman of the SME and Economic Union, Carsten Linnemann (CDU), told the FAZ that CO2 pricing and emissions trading are the right instruments. What the Greens are currently proposing, however, is “national showcase politics” because they “do not have the European dimension on their screen”. The Greens should end their blockade of a European expansion of emissions trading in the European Parliament. Fundamental criticism with the noise of the election campaign is not.

    On the one hand, the FDP clearly concerns the Greens. These had "tough plans for the restructuring of society, the implementation of which would be extremely conflictual and unnecessarily expensive," said FDP chairman Christian Lindner of the FAZ. But he also criticized the federal government in one breath. It was "more or less free of a strategy", after the election a general inventory had to be made. Lindner also keeps an eye on consumer costs. The CO2 pricing of the fuel must have the consequence that its taxation will be reduced.

    The Greens were a bit offended on Friday by the criticism from the government. As soon as it comes to concrete steps towards CO2 pricing in climate policy, the Union and SPD would get "cold feet", said parliamentary group manager Britta Haßelmann. As a consequence, she called for a current hour in the Bundestag on the position of the federal government on the subject.