In the context of negotiations on simplifying European climate and environmental regulations, critics fear a lowering of standards and the Greens have rejected the accusation by Finance Minister Jörg Kukies (SPD) that their party is blocking the reduction of bureaucracy at the EU level.
Vice-Chairman of the Greens, Sven Giegold, told the “Handelsblatt” that the SPD’s construction of a conflict between Robert Habeck and him is very transparent. Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) said that the competitiveness of companies increases when one “pulls together on the same string”.
Kukies had referred to an internet post by Giegold, in which the latter described certain proposals for reducing bureaucracy at the EU level as a “festival of the polluters’ lobby”. Kukies claimed that these proposals were meant, which he and Habeck had submitted in a letter to the EU Commission in December. “The fundamentalists around Sven Giegold are thus attacking their own chancellor candidate Robert Habeck frontally”, the SPD politician wrote.
Giegold now disputes this. “We never directed ourselves against the letter of the federal government”, he said. The reaction of Kukies shows that “bitten dogs bark”. Kukies had intended to continue the proposals to the EU Commission and, in particular, question the Supply Chain Act in its entirety, but he was unable to do so, with neither Habeck nor Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) agreeing, according to Giegold. He had warned against such demands in his internet post.