An environmentalist who reactivates coal-fired power plants? Who would have imagined it a few months ago? Robert Habeck, the Green Minister for the Economy and the Climate, announced this “bitter” decision on June 19, when he had fought hard to obtain in the coalition contract, with the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Liberals (FDP), the definitive abandonment of this fossil fuel, the most polluting on the planet, by 2030. “The pill is hard to swallow, it’s true. But we have no other solution to reduce our gas consumption,” he conceded.
Since then, the Vice-Chancellor has announced new measures every week so that Germans can spend the next winter warm: emergency plan for gas supply, rationing program for companies, lowering of the legal temperature in housing. from 22 to 19 degrees… To fill the storage tanks, he does not hesitate to bow to the Emir of Qatar by closing his eyes to the question of human rights. “I necessarily have to keep a certain distance from my own party, because my role is first and foremost to ensure the country’s energy security,” he said.
Realismus
Faced with the brutal reduction in deliveries of Russian gas, on which Germany is very dependent, the ecologist is more realistic than ever. Forced to renounce his convictions, he convinced the Germans that the energy transition was a question of “national security”. The war in Ukraine is forcing Germany to go even faster to reach the target of 80% of electricity produced with renewable energies, against 42% today. “We must invest three times more in wind turbines, photovoltaics, hydrogen and charging stations”, he asserts without lying to his constituents: “The CO2 balance will be worse [à cause de la relance du charbon]and energy prices are bound to rise.”
Nevertheless, his style pleases. Robert Habeck is the most popular minister in Olaf Scholz’s government. He has the support of his party, but also that of the conservative opposition and the big bosses of industry. The triumph of the ecologists in the regional elections of North Rhine-Westphalia on May 15 (18%) showed that voters supported his policy of breaking with the green pacifism of the 1980s. He is now considered by the media as the “quasi-chancellor” (Der Spiegel) or the “new Willy Brandt” (Stern).
Habeck is the complete opposite of Scholz: he acts. While the Social-Democratic Chancellor shines with his hesitation on arms deliveries to kyiv and his jargon (hence the expression “scholzer”, speaking well for doing nothing), Robert Habeck speaks clearly and accurate. Long before the war in Ukraine, he was the only German political leader to speak out in favor of arms deliveries to kyiv. He succeeded in convincing the ecologist party (Grünen), resulting from pacifist movements, to defend the following principle: no peace without weapons.
Pedagogue and authentic
Seduced, the Germans discovered a new style reminiscent of that of former US President Barack Obama, cool and competent. Habeck does not hesitate to sit cross-legged on a station platform, waiting for his train, surrounded by bodyguards, to work on his files.
A young man from a popular city in Berlin or a banker in Frankfurt, he looks down on no one. Pedagogue and authentic, he flies above the German political elite corseted in its party rhetoric. White shirt and black jacket, always unshaven, his look earned him the nickname “Brad Pitt of the German left” (Suddeutsche Zeitung).
Coming from civil society, Robert Habeck is part of this new generation of ecologists devoid of ideology. In this, he differs from his predecessor, Joschka Fischer, taxi driver, without training and from the student movements. This father of four boys began his career very late, at the age of 40, in the region of Schleswig-Holstein, on the Danish border. “He entered politics a bit by chance”, sums up Susanne Gaschke, one of his biographers.
A successful author of detective novels and children’s books, a philosopher by training, Habeck was first regional Minister of Agriculture and the Environment. In 2018, he was elected to the federal presidency of the ecologist party alongside Annalena Baerbock. A time eclipsed by his rival, candidate of the Greens for the Chancellery in April 2021, he returned to the front of the stage eight months later, becoming Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister for the Economy and the Climate. “He has become the boss of the ecologists again”, summarizes Susanne Gaschke.
Field man
What is the “Habeck phenomenon” due to? Essentially to his oratorical skills, claim the Social Democrats of the SPD, jealous of his popularity. But his way of doing politics proves the opposite. Robert Habeck did not cut his teeth in cafes, like the old sixty-eighters, but by going to talk to farmers or anti-wind demonstrators. The important thing, he says, is to be applauded “for your results, not for your speeches”.
Hence the importance it brings to dialogue. In 2015, he managed to defuse a conflict between fishermen and nature protection associations. “You have two ways of informing citizens, he says. You can submit a file to the town hall and wait for people to go there to read it. In this case, no one moves, except for experts. Otherwise, you go to the field to explain your approach and convince people of the usefulness of the project”, he explains.
Recently, Robert Habeck applied this precept once again by meeting workers at the Schwedt refinery in Brandenburg to talk to them about the future of their jobs without Russian oil, whose imports have been reduced by two-thirds by Brussels, a figure that will rise to 90% by the end of the year. The bearded minister climbed on a table, like a tribune, to assure them that he would find hydrocarbons elsewhere. In the same way, he convinced the Germans that the reopening of coal-fired power stations would be a lesser evil. This is not a step back, he says, but only a “provisional” measure that will save the energy transition, the ultimate goal of “Robert le Vert”.