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In a referendum slated for this coming Sunday, Swiss citizens are being called to vote on a national energy strategy, dubbed Energiestrategie 2050.

Germany Green Party co-founder and former federal Homeland Minister Otto Georg Schily warns Swiss citizens voting on energy referendum that the Energiewende is “an economic, social and ecological disaster”. Photo by Olaf Kosinsky (2015), CC BY-SA 3.0 de.

Now it is reported that just days ago German Green Party co-founder (later turned socialist) and former German Homeland Minister Otto Schily has come out to warn Swiss citizens against voting yes on the project, reminding them that Germany’s Energiewende (transition to green energies) is not the success it is often claimed to be, and that it has in fact turned into a 25 billion euro a year disaster.

This is reported the online Swiss daily, Basler Zeitung here.

Schily held the top position in Germany’s Homeland Ministry in the country’s Socialist/Green coalition government led by Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. He is regarded as one of the country’s most respected elderly politicians and statesmen.

According to the Basler Zeitung, Schily wrote a letter to Christoph Blocher, where he judged the Energiewende to be an “economic, ecological and social disaster” and so urged Swiss citizens to vote no.

The rightwing Swiss SVP party, led by Blocher, is leading the campaign against the green energy transformation project put forth by Swiss President Doris Leuthard of the centrist Christian CVP party. Both Schily and Blocher were Homeland ministers at the same time in their respective countries in the 2000s and are reported to maintain light contact.

The online Swiss site BLICK characterized Schily’s letter as “explosive”.

The Basler Zeitung reports: “The costs of the Energiewende have grown to over 25 billion euros annually. As a result consumer electricity bills have risen year after year.”

Socially unjust

Schily wrote that Germany’s green energies are also “extremely socially unjust” because they force low income consumers to pay more money into the pockets of wealthy wind and solar park operators – in a classic redistribution from the bottom up.

Jobs-killer, done nothing for the climate

Moreover, the Basler Zeitung writes that the Energiewende has scarred Germany’s natural landscape, has probably cost more jobs than it created, and has “contributed nothing to climate policy as it hoped to do“. Schily advised Swiss citizens “not to repeat the far reaching energy policy of the German Energiewende“.

German CO2 emissions rising instead of falling

The Basler Zeitung also cites an “expert team” by McKinsey consulting group, which not long ago found that the German energy policy has fallen far short of its aims: “Emissions of climate-harmful carbon dioxide are not going down, but rather are increasing, as is power consumption even though it was supposed to go down because of efficiency measures.”

The Basler Zeitung adds: “a collapse of the power supply threatens when the remaining German nuclear power plants are taken offline over the coming years“.