What is allowed for Jupiter...forbidden for the Poles!

More and more agricultural land was planted with solar collectors instead of grain, and windmills sprouted from the ground like mushrooms. There was a big real estate business involved, and oddly enough the Greens, who were pushing for the transition, didn't protest at all.

Fukushima changed my opinion on nuclear energy, Angela Merkel a few months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It was such a successful sentence that in 2011 the German Language Society chose it as sentence of the year. From then on, Merkel was called the "climate chancellor" and her government the "climate government". "I represent our joint project on decommissioning nuclear power plants with all my strength and full conviction," he added. The emphasis is on the common, the cabinet and the opposition parties (Greens, Socialists) have for a decade together brought Germany into the current energy price explosion.

Perhaps even the later "Willkommen" era was superseded by the chancellor's political activities related to nuclear energy. After all, much earlier, in 1994, as the Minister of Environmental Protection, he called nuclear energy the cleanest source of energy. As chancellor, when the Christian Democrats were flirting with the liberals, he adopted the liberal narrative.

He told the Greens that he did not see any sense in why Germany should withdraw from the world's safest nuclear technology for ideological reasons. Then in 2011, he suddenly ordered a safety review of all 17 nuclear power plants in Germany, the seven oldest were shut down immediately, and a decision was made to completely phase out nuclear power by 2022. We must switch to renewable, environmentally friendly energy sources, we undertake this until 2022! - stated the climate chancellor in the climate cabinet.

Solar energy and wind energy were quite expensive even at that time, but the self-conscious German citizen who was concerned about the future of the Earth chose renewable energy in his electricity bill portfolio, it costs what it costs!

More and more agricultural land was planted with solar collectors instead of grain, and windmills sprouted from the ground like mushrooms. There was a big real estate business in this, and strangely enough, the Greens, who were pushing for the transition, did not protest at all (they kept silent) about how much land was converted, how much forest was cut down to install solar or wind power plants. Even this was not enough to ensure the country's energy supply, renewable energy sources can only produce half of the required annual amount. Let's say, the Germans could save a little, as Márki-Zay also recommends to his followers, but heating and lighting must be done, mobile phones and the batteries of the millions of electric cars must also be charged with something.

There was nothing to be done, they reopened some coal mines that had previously been closed due to climate goals, such as Hambach, despite the protests of the climate activists who moved to the treetops in the forest of the reclaimed area. Sometimes villages and churches were demolished because, unfortunately, a coal field lay beneath them. Legally, there were no problems, the energy provider bought these areas in advance. The Immerathi church, for example, was sold to RWE by the bishopric of Aachen itself. The company also obtained a mining license until 2045 from the authorities.

With the phase-out of nuclear power plants, coal power plants are gaining more and more weight, their share in the electricity supply is 45 percent. Exactly nine coal-fired power plants have been built in place of the nine nuclear power plants that have been closed so far, and in addition to domestic lignite extraction, the coal needed for power generation is imported from abroad, for example from Colombia. At the same time, a joint project was launched with other European coal importing concerns to reduce coal power plants. Environmentalists stylishly call this "greenwashing" instead of money laundering, because they consider the environmentally conscious and responsible corporate image to be false and hypocritical.

The European Commission did not find the re-opening of lignite mines to be a concern , as this is only a temporary state, until renewable energy sources can fully take over the production of the decommissioned nuclear power plants. And anyway, Germany is committed to the fight against climate change, we heard this again at the climate summit in Glasgow.

This is not the case with Poland, whose leaders do not immediately nod to the goals and targets set in Brussels and at the various climate summits, saying yes, by 2030, by 2050, we will achieve such and such a percentage. Poland's energy industry is based on coal, it cannot and does not want to commit to future carbon neutrality, it insists on its own, planned pace. In addition, he demands guarantees that he will receive sufficient EU support to achieve higher reductions in the "green transition".

Even if there is no guarantee, the Poles have already been punished. Although the Turów mine, located near the Czech-Polish border, has an operating license until 2044, the EU court closed the mine following a complaint from the Czechs. Poland ignored the ruling because it threatens the stability of the country's electricity supply and could have serious economic consequences. The European Court is not interested in all this. He stipulated that they must pay a fine of half a million euros every day until the mine is closed.

According to the Polish point of view, the decisions of the EU court cannot in any way harm the national security of the member states, which includes energy security. And they don't pay. Just as they do not want to abolish the disciplinary chamber established to eliminate judicial violations, since EU membership does not mean that they have renounced their sovereignty. And they are not willing to pay the additional one million euros per day that the court imposed on them. A total of one and a half million euros per day. What did German EP Vice-President Katarina Barley "Poland (and Hungary) must be financially starved."

And that's not the end of the starvation. The other day , after establishing in a constructive debate that the Polish Constitutional Court has no legal legitimacy, is not independent, and is not entitled to interpret the Polish constitution, the European Parliament made a decision that EU taxpayers' money should not be given to governments that flagrantly, deliberately and systematically undermine EU values. Therefore, they are calling for procedures against Poland.

There is no need to starve Germany, they have already received their share of the heavy billions of euros from the recovery fund. Their lignite mines are not closed, as they are temporary, they operate as long as they have a permit. There are no rule of law complaints against them, even though their politicians are very actively involved in the appointment of judges. And we have already seen that the German Constitutional Court overruled and classified the decision of the European Court as wrong. After that, no debate was organized in the EP, they did not say that the Germans had launched an attack against the entire union, and it was not said that the European Union is a community of values ​​and law, which all member states must respect.

We are used to talking about double standards, but there is more to it than that. If we think differently about the world, if we represent our national interests, then the phrases, the lessons, the bleeding will come. Interference in domestic politics.

It is lucky that the European Union does not have an army.

Source: Magyar Hírlap. Author: Irén Rab

(Header image: REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay)