Katherina Reiche is of the opinion that Germany should drill for fossil fuels in the North Sea.Image: keystone
The EU’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050 may not be achievable, says Katherina Reiche (CDU). Reiche made her statements at an oil and gas industry meeting in Texas – and they are no coincidence.
Mar 25, 2026, 11:48Mar 25, 2026, 11:48
Germany actually agrees, as do the EU states: they want to be climate neutral by 2050 at the latest. Last year, an interim target was added: by 2040, the EU’s emissions should be reduced by 90 percent. And Germany itself has set itself an even stricter goal: climate neutrality by 2045.
Statements from the Federal Minister of Economics made people sit up and take notice all the more. Like that News portal Politico first reported, Katherina Reiche said at the Ceraweek energy conference in Houston, Texas, that one had to “become more flexible again” and perhaps “not accept 100 percent solutions, but allow different solutions and technologies.” One should “accept that there could still be a gap of five or ten percent by 2050.” Accordingly, the CDU politician finds the climate target too strict and rigid:
“If you set yourself strict and rigid goals, you limit yourself and in the end you lose industries that you need… and we cannot afford to lose our energy-intensive industries in Europe and Germany.”
Explosive: Ceraweek in Houston is considered an important meeting of the oil and gas lobby. Reiche’s own past has been critically assessed in this regard since her rather surprising successor to Robert Habeck (Greens): she is said to be extremely close to individual companies and the oil and gas industry. Your proposals for the energy transition were the most recent striking similarities to the demands of industry lobbyists.
Reiche also told the Ceraweek audience that she believes Germany should drill for fossil fuels in the North Sea. She said: “We have a gas field in the North Sea that we don’t want to develop. I don’t think we can stick to this attitude. We also have to use our own resources.”
Abandonment of Robert Habeck’s plans
According to Politico, in her statements in Houston, Reiche repeatedly emphasized that the economy should, if necessary, take precedence over climate goals. “Ultimately, it’s good to set sustainability as your goal – but if sustainability brings the economy to a standstill, you have to reorganize,” she said. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing right now.”
The CDU politician had a point here. The Federal Minister of Economics has energy plans that differ significantly from those of her Green predecessor: gas power plants are to be expanded, the previous government’s phase-out of gas boilers is to be reversed, subsidies for solar systems are to be canceled and the priority for grid connections for renewable energies is to be reduced.
Her predecessor, Robert Habeck, had specifically promoted renewable energies. This made them the largest electricity supplier in Germany.
Climate targets are binding
What Katherina Reiche didn’t mention in Texas: The EU’s climate protection goals are a legal requirement. This means that if a country does not comply with them, it has to pay penalties.
And in Germany itself, the climate goals are also anchored in law. In 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court made a decision in this regard that was considered “historic”: it declared parts of the German Climate Protection Act of 2019 to be unconstitutional. The decision obliged the government to set concrete emission reduction targets for the period after 2030 by the end of 2022. The Constitutional Court recognized climate protection as a fundamental legal obligation: the state must also protect the natural foundations of life as a responsibility for future generations.
Just recently, in January, there was another ruling: The Federal Administrative Court came to the conclusion that the federal government’s climate protection program decided on in 2023 not enoughto achieve climate goals. Environmental aid sued. Now the government must sharpen its climate protection program.
The deadline for improvements expires today, Wednesday, March 25th. To this day, the German government is legally obliged to to present a new climate protection program. It must show how the country wants to achieve the binding goals it has set for itself: minus 65 percent greenhouse gases by 2030, minus 88 percent by 2040 and climate neutrality by 2045.
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