CDU campaign for the heat transition: resisting the culture war. Good this way!

Opinion

In the matter one wants to remain constructive, announced Mario Czaja on Thursday morning in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus. Ui! We weren’t necessarily prepared for that after the past few days. What had the Union raged about the heating law of the traffic light government. A few hours earlier, Czaja himself called the plans a “journey to Green Absurdistan.”

And now? Well, they didn’t exactly meet for a working group to work out constructive solutions for the traffic light. Czaja presented a campaign against the law with his deputy Christina Stumpp. He didn’t want to call it a signature campaign, but it is a mobilization campaign – one that you can just sign for.

There’s a website for that. Serious faces look at the visitor. “Don’t burn my rent” is written next to it, or: “Don’t burn my pension”. Further down you can then sign against the “heating hammer of the traffic light”. Constructive is perhaps not the right word to describe this policy. But the CDU just got the curve.

There really are unanswered questions

After all, the description is correct: Of course, many people are unsettled. On the one hand, this is certainly due to the mood-mongering of the Union. On the other hand, and this is where the accusation must be directed, at the speechlessness of the government. The questions of how the heating exchange will be financed and who will be funded in what way have been in the air for months. So far they have not been adequately answered. It’s the opposition’s job to point that out.

The CDU describes a real problem and puts pressure on it to solve this problem. And it is probably thanks to these two rather factually reticent politicians who are on stage and presenting this campaign that this material conflict does not turn into a culture war. They don’t shout: “We don’t want to change, we want to eat meat and not a heat pump.” On the contrary: They are committed to fighting climate change, advocate replacing gas heating systems and want to involve people in the process. That’s good.

Not everyone in the CDU got it

As long as democratic parties can agree on the basic direction, on the goal (and that means: fight this climate crisis somehow), the design can be discussed. This has not yet reached every CDU member, but the sensible ones seem to have prevailed in this campaign.

Now the CDU does not really make concrete suggestions on how to make the law fairer, more effective, better. She speaks of real freedom of choice when it comes to heating, affordable costs and tax incentives for everyone. That means something between everything and nothing. But, back to the beginning, opposition parties are not there to do the work of the government.

The sister party CSU wants to present its campaign for the law on Monday. Czaja assures that there has been close coordination. It will probably be a bit more rowdy anyway, Markus Söder has not been too bad for any culture war so far.