Germany’s left-liberal federal economic minister Robert Habeck (Grüne), who last month saw his approval rating sink to a dismal 34%, has appealed to citizens to reduce their gas consumption amid a looming energy crisis this winter, warning the public that the country’s gas reserve could quite possibly run out in the months ahead.
During an interview with the state-funded radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Friday, a day after Germany’s federal government instituted its new gas price break program to assist German citizens cope with runaway energy prices, Habeck warned that the country was looking at an “extremely tense situation” in the months ahead, Reuters reports.
“If we don’t save, if households don’t reduce consumption, we still risk not having enough gas in the winter. If everything goes well, if savings in Germany are high and if we have a bit of luck with the weather, we will have a chance at getting through the winter comfortably,” the economic minister said.
“That means, however, that the storage facilities will be empty again at the end of the winter, in this case really empty, because we are going to use the gas,” Habeck added.
The economic mister’s plea comes less than two weeks after the Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory (AGSI), a European energy data platform, claimed that Germany’s gas reserves are currently at 90% capacity, and added that by November reserves should meet a 95% storage capacity.
Habeck’s words of caution also come days after he received a letter from the German Retail Trade Federation (HDE), an organization that represents the needs and interests of country’s retail sector, which warned that that some 16,000 businesses are facing bankruptcy as a result of high inflation rates, the euro’s low purchasing power, and exorbitantly high-priced energy.
