After Merkel: Germany’s Climate Policy

Angela Merkel's departure in September 2021 marks a political, economic, and geopolitical turning point. Considered the "sick man of Europe" only 20 years ago, Germany has firmly asserted its position as a leader on the continent today. While speculations spread about who the next Chancellor could be, one thing is certain: Merkel is leaving behind a significant legacy. 

How is Germany preparing for the post-Merkel era? To answer that question, Head of our Germany Program Alexandre Robinet-Borgomano and Senior Reporter Marion Van Renterghem have interviewed a number of leading economic and political actors in Germany. Through these short interviews, we will gain insight into the debates that are shaping the public opinion in the run-up to the federal elections. In this first episode, Franziska Brantner, Member of the German Bundestag and spokeswoman for the Green party answers three questions about the progress of environmental policies under Merkel and how they could evolve after the elections. 

How do you evaluate Merkel’s track record, especially in terms of environmental policies?

Angela Merkel has faced several crises during her time as Chancellor. Though she managed to effectively deal with imminent challenges within her country and at the European level, Merkel failed to take preventive actions. For instance, her delayed reaction to the financial crisis in 2008 and to the refugee crisis in 2015 has been subject to criticism. In the midst of the refugee crisis, in June 2015, Angela Merkel remained fiercely opposed to a European mechanism for the distribution of refugees arriving in Italy. That was despite the many calls from our Italian friends, who found themselves alone in the first months of the crisis. Only two or three months later, she took a completely different decision. Merkel’s cookie-cutter approach is to postpone decisions until the very last moment, even if this implies additional costs. 

Her track record concerning environmental protection is disappointing. Merkel just admitted herself that the governments under her leadership have not done enough for climate protection. Instead, they have slowed down the growth of the renewable energy sector and have given free rein to the car industry to cheat out of innovation. Under her reign, Germany stuck to its unsustainable agricultural model. Moreover, with the attempt to take Deutsche Bahn (the German railway company) to the stock exchange, Merkel thwarted the improvement of public transport.

So many bad decisions for the climate! When she came to power in 2005, she managed to negotiate a good nuclear power phase-out. Only a year later however, her government made the big mistake of getting back into nuclear power. Following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011, she called for a second nuclear phase-out. These five years of back-and-forth cost German taxpayers a lot of money and should have been used to accompany companies in their ecological transition. 

Unfortunately, Angela Merkel did not have very high ambitions for climate protection. The last climate package from September 2019 proposed a carbon price of merely 10 EUR per ton of CO₂. After various negotiations across the Länder, we Greens have at least managed to raise this price to 25 EUR.