Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) is facing resistance from the Union party due to his proposal to consolidate more climate protection competencies at the federal level via an amendment to the Basic Law.
Günter Krings (CDU), the vice-chairman of the Union parliamentary group, told the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” that while such a new, broad federal competence would keep constitutional legal scholars busy for years dealing with delimitation issues, it would not offer any benefit to the climate. He argued that a generalized climate protection competency would leave very little legislative scope for the states in areas such as building, environmental, and economic law, because almost everything has relevance to climate protection.
Krings stressed that because climate protection is a cross-cutting task requiring national coordination, all governmental levels must be involved and treat it as their own project. He also pointed out that the Federal Constitutional Court’s 2021 climate protection ruling already mandated that all levels of government must participate. For the crucial topic of energy policy, the federal government already holds legislative authority.
It should be noted that successfully amending the Basic Law requires a two-thirds majority in both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.
