After their spring conference, the economics ministers of the federal states appealed to companies and citizens to save on gas in view of the impending gas shortages in winter. “We agree: Every kilowatt hour counts,” said the chairwoman of the Conference of Economics Ministers, North Rhine-Westphalian Economics Minister Mona Neubaur (Greens), after the meeting on Friday in Dortmund. It is now a question of getting the gas storage tanks filled as much as possible before winter.
Saarland Economics Minister Jürgen Barke (SPD) said there was great concern that deliveries from Russia would not resume after the upcoming maintenance of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. It is therefore in the interest of everyone involved in Germany to save gas now. The savings are good for your wallet, but also important for securing jobs.
The conference of economics ministers appealed to the federal government to further intensify its efforts to secure raw materials, energy supply and sales markets in the long term. The unhealthy dependency on Russian gas supplies must be ended as soon as possible. Neubaur emphasized that the federal and state governments are pulling together to deal with the crisis.
“We are fully aware of our responsibility as economics ministers of each individual country, how necessary it is to ensure security of energy supply – including with measures that we all together might not have even dreamed of four months ago,” said Neubaur. Together, the federal and state governments would face the challenges with all their might. However, the goal of a future climate-neutral production method based on renewable energies remains unchanged.
