Germany has been in the News mainly because of Greece, but other interesting things are happening there too. At the bottom of this email is an informative email about the Left Party. I can recommend the link to the Victor Grossman article in MRZine
But in my view, the most important thing happening in Germany right now is the "Energy Turnaround" (Energiewende), i.e., the switch away from nuclear and later also fossil fuels to renewable energy. No other country, with the possible exception of Japan, is doing this. Germany is the world pioneer, and the success or failure of its ambitious program means a lot for what what will happen in other countries. Interestingly the energy turnaround happens under CDU/FDP leadership. Angela Merkel is somewhat an outsider in her own party, and there are many in CDU and FDP who wish it would fail. The former German minister of the environment, Norbert Roettgen, has just been fired by Merkel. Roettgen tried to pretty much dismantle the German Feed-In tariffs, but he did not succeed because of opposition of the states in the former GDR for whom renewable energy is the lifeline. There was speculation whether Merkel thought Roettgen did not push the Energiewende vigorously enough. It is hard for me to see from afar, others even say she fired him because he pushed it too vigorously. The new minister of the environment is a close ally of Merkel but not an expert on the environment. This weekend it became clear that Merkel herself wants to take leadership for the energy turnaround (she used to be minister of the environment before becoming chancellor). I like what she is doing: (a) There will be regular bi-annual meetings with the Ministerpraesidenten of the states (what in the USA would be the governors). Merkel says that some states pursue a policy of energy autarky which is out of place. (b) Merkel is introducing legislation which gives the Federal Government more authority to build an electric transmission grid. There are not enough transmission lines to bring the wind power from the North to the industrial regions in the South. Transmission lines are always difficult, nobody wants them in their backyard. (c) Merkel is working on a tariff structure so that the owners of fossil fuel power plants can make money for just keeping their capacity available in case the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow. Renewable energy has priority, they will be used first. But at the beginning, as long as energy storage has not yet been developed sufficiently, fossil fuel power plants must be used as backup. The owners of these plants however threaten to shut down their plants if they are not allowed to run at full capacity. It remains to be seen if they are satisfied with this temporary bridge-role as long as they are paid for it. I see these profit guarantees as a gambit by Merkel which forces them to show whether they are willing to cooperate or whether they will more openly fight to keep their own dominance. Hans Here is the email which was orginnaly forwarded by Sid Sniad to Rad-Green: --- forwarded email --- From: Ingo Schmidt Date: Sat, May 26, 2012 at 12:36 PM Subject: Germany's Left Party in Crisis Dear friends, you may have heard about the crisis of The Left Party in Germany. Mainstream media presents it mostly as an cabal among power-hungry individuals struggling over leadership positions. Frustrating as these struggles are, the crisis developed over quite some time. More precisely: It started to unfold when the Great Recession hit. Contrary to hopes and expectations on the left, and not only among Left Party folks, increasing unemployment, wage pressure, and austerity policies did not trigger the kind of fight back that we have seen in Greece and Spain. And, so far at least, no electoral left turn, as recently in France, happened either. Instead, approval rates for The Left Party nose-dived while politically indeterminate discontent helped another new party, The Pirate Party, to establish themselves as a player in electoral politics. One of the reasons for this new German 'Sonderweg' is the capacity of Germany's ruling class to unload the burden of the economic crisis on other countries, namely the deficit and debtor countries on the European periphery. Aggressive beggar-thy-neighbour policies buy, for the time being at least, social peace at home and make The Left Party look as something not really needed in a country priding itself as world champion of exports. Under these conditions tensions that existed in The Left Party from its beginnings in 2007 unfolded slowly until they erupted in the current heated leadership debate. The bitter irony may be that The Left Party ruins itself just before the austerity policy the German government forces down European throats ruins the European economy including its German export bastion. Just this last week, the OECD, not exactly a crisis-mongering institution, warned that continued austerity will push Germany, Europe, and possibly the world economy into another recession. Whether this will trigger a Syriza-style left in Germany remains to be seen; one sure should hope so. Here are two articles on The Left Party: This one describing its current condition: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/grossman240512.html And this one dealing with its internal tensions leading to the current crisis: http://monthlyreview.org/2007/05/01/the-left-opposition-in-germany-why-is-the-left-so-weak-when-so-many-look-for-political-alternatives In solidarity, Ingo Dr. Ingo Schmidt Academic Coordinator, Labour Studies Athabasca University 1 University Drive Athabasca, AB T9S 3A3 Canada Phone: 1 - 866 - 916 - 8648 ------- End of forwarded message ------- _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
