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Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of pol

• MrGilbert 1y ago
  According to his Instagram, he is currently working in Copenhagen: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOFwjUfDXdp/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DOFwjUfDXdp/
  • grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
    Thanks for the update! I wonder if he changed his mind on the Berkeley offer [1]. Part time role though so maybe he just hasn't relocated. 1. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/habeck-gastdozent-berkeley-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/habeck-gastdoz...
    • wvbdmp 1y ago
      Copenhagen, then California was always the plan afaik. Berkeley is just not until next year.
• tirant 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • BoredPositron 1y ago
    Thats a lot of historical revision if you blame a dude who was minister for 3.5 years about decisions made 20-30 years ago. Same for your last paragraph. Nothing even close to that happened in the years he governed. Maybe you should start showing recipes because it looks like your grievances are personal in nature and everything but factual.
    • mbeex 1y ago
      > it looks like your grievances are personal Given the changing voting behavior in Germany, these personal complaints seem to be quite widespread.
      • tcfhgj 1y ago
        > Given the changing voting behavior in Germany therefore "the leader we needed but didn't deserve"
      • BoredPositron 1y ago
        It's fine to have those grievances if you can articulate them factual. Hell they are even fine if you can't. The only thing I am saying is that you don't need to make stuff up just to give those grievances weight or convey others to your sentiment...
    • spongebobism 1y ago
      More like 3.5 years, right? December 2021 through May 2025.
      • BoredPositron 1y ago
        You are right. Corrected.
  • silvand 1y ago
    He had a pretty unfortunate card dealt to him with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Germanys dependence on Russian gas, especially in its industry. I think the move away from nuclear energy in Germany was a mistake, but one which was decided on way before he came into office. Doubling down on nuclear would have cost a fortune (old reactors weren't maintained well enough to run for longer due to phase out decision after Fukushima & not enough new engineers in Germany). He was in a lose lose situation, I think he did pretty well overall, but was blamed for old decisions (Altmaiers abandonment of German solar industry, heating reform by CDU+SPD) and had bad handling of reports on him in the news.
  • Poisonbox 1y ago
    That post is some dangerous half-knowledge and simplifications stated as fact. Yes, Habeck is an interventionist, but his biggest interventions were a direct response to... you know, the war in Ukraine. What did anyone expect? When Putin turned off the gas, was Habeck supposed to just let the free market sort it out while factories shut down and people froze? Those price caps and the Uniper buyout weren't pre-planned. I'm sure he would have preferred to have never been in that situation in the first place. And the reactor shutdown argument never gets old, does it? The decision to ditch nuclear power was made in 2011 by Angela Merkel. Habeck was just the guy who had to turn off the lights at a party that ended a decade earlier. Remember all those predictions of nationwide blackouts in April 23? Funny how the lights are still on. The claim about coal usage was true for about five minutes in the winter of 22. It was a temporary panic move to save gas, and since then, coal consumption has dropped to a historic low. It's also funny how renewables—the actual backbone of our energy system, which were on the rise long before Habeck, are framed as a "gamble." The upsides and downsides are very well understood by now. There was never any gambling involved but I guess let's just frame a strategic, well understood, decade long move to renewables as a snap decision gamble. Look, no one's saying his term was perfect. And yes, the man has charisma, which is apparently a bad thing now? But calling his term a "disaster" while ignoring the reality of the crises he faced—coming out of COVID, the energy war, is just strange.
    • spankibalt 1y ago
      > "That post is some dangerous half-knowledge and simplifications stated as fact." That's... putting it mildly. To call a spade a spade: The post you replied to consists of nothing more than anti-Green crankery. The kind of tedious, intellectually dishonest click-bait crap you see disseminated in the Springer-Presse, e. g. ze WELT-Plus-Commentariat, or media of even less repute.
      • tcfhgj 1y ago
        thank you two for providing important context, although it is not popular
        • 1y ago
  • tcfhgj 1y ago
    There was no strong push way from nuclear energy, just a continuation of Germany's general nuclear energy path. Studies also showed that this had no negative effect on electricity prices. Core voters of the green party are mostly highly educated people[1]. There are not many more women than men in their voters[2]. I hear the first time about public employmemt, and haven't seen any statistics about that. Regarding energy he certainly didn't gamble on energy. He gave everything for a transition away from gas and coal and invested in renewable storage systems (short and long term storage) backed by scientific institutions continuously evaluating, planning and simulating the transition of Germanys energy system including related sectors until 2045/2050 [3]. Thanks to storage a renewable energy system can be reliable while highly dynamic. He reduced the time needed to create wind turbines massively as well. He also prevented a complete crash of the economy and infrastructure caused by the dependency on gas of Putin which greens have not been a fan of, because of ecological issues as well as the danger of Putin which only the greens recognized before Putin started the war on Ukraine. Rising debt to invest into the future and infrastructure was then plan of the greens, but they got blocked (and medially attacked for it - claiming it was not needed) by the current government which then realized this plan (at least from a high level perspective) with the help of the greens in the opposition, because a simple majority isn't enough for increasing debt. I am not aware of active acceleration of a decline of the industry beyond the decline which was already in the system for years and the situation we were in due to COVID and the war. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/charts/umfrage-werwas/chart_1874851.shtml https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/chart... [2] https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2021-09-26-BT-DE/charts/umfrage-werwas/chart_876484.shtml https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2021-09-26-BT-DE/chart... [3] https://langfristszenarien.de/enertile-explorer-de/index.php https://langfristszenarien.de/enertile-explorer-de/index.php
    • tcfhgj 1y ago
      sources for: > dependency on gas of Putin which greens have not been a fan of, because of ecological issues as well as the danger of Putin which only the greens recognized before Putin started the war on Ukraine. https://x.com/i/status/1497948385495687169 https://x.com/i/status/1497948385495687169 (captured from election debate 2021) https://euractiv.de/news/baerbock-kritisiert-einigung-zu-nord-stream-2-laschet-begruesst-sie/ https://euractiv.de/news/baerbock-kritisiert-einigung-zu-nor...
  • adrianN 1y ago
    Phase out of nuclear was agreed upon after Fukushima, long before Habeck had anything to say.
    • Timon3 1y ago
      And just to be explicit, because I see people lie about this very often: this decision was made by the conservative party (CDU) while the Greens were not part of the government.
      • MagnumOpus 1y ago
        Incorrect. The decision was made by the SPD (leftist)+ Green coalition government in 2000, and was a condition by the Greens to enter the coalition (and then was adopted by an SPD chancellor who later took a job with Gazprom). When the conservatives got back into power a decade later, they started to roll back the nuclear exit. But during the panic after the Japan tsunami this policy became unpopular so the conservatives reversed course and stuck with the disastrous Green policy. But make no mistake, if the Greens did not make it into government, the Atomausstieg would never have happened. Subjects to read for details: * “Atomkonsens” 2000 and “Novellierung des Atomgesetzes” 2002, Kabinett Schröder, * “Laufzeitverlängerung deutscher Kernkraftwerke”, 2010, Kabinett Merkel II * “13. Gesetz zur Änderung des Atomgesetzes“ 2011 post-Fukushima, taking back the 2010 extensions
        • kohlerm 1y ago
          Merkel (CDU) pushed it after Fukushima, because "oh it's dangerous", which wasn't rational, but she knew people wanted it
    • jansan 1y ago
      It was agreed upon under completely different circumstances, namely a stable supply of Russian gas. I cannot believe that people do not get this into their head.
      • krior 1y ago
  • kohlerm 1y ago
    He is on of the few politicians who follow his beliefs about what needs to be done, less so about what is popular. He also made sure Germany had enough gas. He had nothing todo with the pushback of nuclear energy (that was the CDU/Merkel). Nuclear energy is not cheap.
    • tirant 1y ago
      All politicians follow their beliefs. They just become more problematic the more interventionist they are. And Habeck was extremely interventionist. On top of that he used his position of power to go against private citizens under the excuse of free speech. He filed 805 criminal complaints, in some situations just for being called an idiot online. Nuclear energy pushback in DE was a result of the fear caused by Chernobyl in 1986. Refreshed by the Fukushima incident. The CDU was not brave enough to go against that fear. And Habeck just continued that approach even in difficult moments for the German industry. Nuclear is not cheap, but it’s stable, predictable, does not generate CO2 and if well planned, also provides self-reliance for the country using it.
      • kohlerm 1y ago
        >All politicians follow their beliefs No they don't they, a lot them will do whatever is needed (change their minds at will) to stay in power. If you ever listened to Habeck, there are simple rational arguments why it did not makes sense to continue running the nuclear plants for longer. There was anyway no easy affordable way to just let them run for many years (contracts). At the end nuclear was only contributing 1.5% to the overall energy production.
• walthamstow 1y ago
  I'm not German nor do I live there, but I would have thought the legacy of Habeck would be more negative due to his opposition to nuclear.
  • MaKey 1y ago
    Germany's nuclear power plants were shut down by the governments before him. What do you think he should have done differently?
    • jansan 1y ago
      The plan to shut down nuclear power plants was done under the premise of a stable supply of Russian gas. This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock (at that time nuclear power was even classified as sustainable by the EU btw.), he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. In my opinion this was the worst political decision of German politics since WW2, unless he wanted to hurt German industry on purpose, which is not even unthinkable.
      • slightwinder 1y ago
        > This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock There was nothing to mitigate. The nuclear plants deliver electricity, which was never a problem in Germany. > he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. That's a lie. They even prolonged the usage for some months to appease the fearmongers. But without fuel, there was a limit on how they could run anyway. > unless he wanted to hurt German industry on purpose, which is not even unthinkable. Ah, you're from the conspiracy-bubble...
        • mk89 1y ago
          [flagged]
          • 1y ago
• mk89 1y ago
  The leader we didn't deserve? Sorry but Merkel reached almost 50% of energy production with renewables. Germany was already a leader in 2021-2022 with almost 45-50%. The idea was to grow "sustainably", and in fact it was functioning. Even the "original" GEG comes from Merkel who was slowly pushing for a change. Then somehow someone decided they had to restrict and punish and this was our "undeserved" Habeck and friends. There was no need at all to disrupt the country into what it has become today. Literally everyone said that. Only the Scholz/Greens government didn't see that. EDIT: in fact, if we just reverted the commits to pre-2022 we'd be already in a better situation. No new changes. Just start from what was working. And well, keep the new solar panel stuff for balconies. It seems a nice idea (which a lot of countries are doing anyways, so nothing so innovative here).
• okucu 1y ago
  How out of touch do you have to be with reality? 2+ years of recession and he was the leader we needed? He literally ruined us all
  • kharak 1y ago
    He has been well received among left-green voters, civil servants and alike. He communicated without the usual empty political phrases, that alone brought him sympathies. He also managed the Ukraine crisis well, for instance, he was involved in quickly finding alternative gas sources after one of the Nord Stream pipelines had been destroyed. I'd say he embodied the values, policies and mannerism of his electorate better than anyone else. And yet I agree with you. Economically, he disappointed through and through. Same for climate change, which ironically is at the heart of the Green party he belongs to. For example, to more conservative voters, he's will mostly remembered as the politician who wanted to bring a central planning approach into their homes, forcing everyone to install costly heat pumps, with their own money, without much regard to their specific household situation. All to achieve no effective carbon emission reduction. But to his left-green electorate, he remains sacrosanct, his critics are dismissed, often as far-right.
    • okucu 1y ago
      >he was involved in quickly finding alternative gas sources after one of the Nord Stream pipelines The very same pipeline he helped to cover that their own ally destroyed Also what the hell is your argumentation? "Actually the people who voted him, liked him" no shit. The very same people are more in favor of war than the average Nazi back in the 30s
      • kharak 1y ago
        I made no argument, merely tried to explain why he is viewed favourably by some. I could have left out the second and last paragraph, that was more about me showing that I didn’t agree with his performance either.
• qwertox 1y ago
  What his enemies (CDU/AfD) don't mention is that even they wouldn't have been able to undo the stop. But being in the opposition must be a fun thing since you can say the most beautiful sounding things and never have to actually deliver anything. AfD even goes a step beyond raw stupidity because they want to destroy all the wind turbines. So not just stop the ones already delivering energy, but destroy them. They just don't realize that we need every bit of energy we can get. They have some donating friends which are against wind turbines, because of the looks. It was close to funny how Elon Musk held back his disagreement with the AfD regarding their wish to destroy the wind turbines. I'd go so far as to say that the only reason why Germany has the political and societal problems it has now are only due to the constrain in energy.
  • nidskee 1y ago
    That and the long running demographic issues (that one is global).