The German District Council welcomed the draft provisions of the new heating law as a positive step. “The agreed changes to the heating law are a proper step and were promised” chief executive Kay Ruge told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. “That the correction is now made in this way is good and reflects the lived reality of millions of people”.
Ruge stressed that more openness to technology, less bureaucracy, and greater practicality are urgently needed. He added that, from the districts’ perspective, it is crucial that municipal heat planning remains a strategic tool while becoming simpler and more usable for smaller municipalities-a goal the CDU and SPD outlined in their key‑points paper.
He also emphasized the importance of planning certainty and warned against new burdens. “Planning certainty is vital; politics has lost a lot of trust on this issue in recent years” Ruge criticized. “It is essential that the announced changes be implemented in a practical, user‑friendly manner and without imposing new hardships on citizens and municipalities”.
In contrast, Monika Schnitzer, head of economics at Wirtschaftsweisen, sharply criticised the ruling coalition’s plans for a new heating law. She argued that opening the market to gas and oil heating introduces “new uncertainties”. She warned that it is uncertain whether climate‑friendly fuels will remain competitively priced and that European emissions trading will significantly raise the cost of fossil heating. Consequently, gas and oil boilers may become a long‑term cost trap.
Schnitzer suggested reducing uncertainty by making the transition to climate‑friendly technologies reliably cheaper, cutting bureaucratic hurdles-even in subsidies. “This would allow heating contractors and the industry to ramp up production volumes and eventually bring prices down” she said.
