SPD’s North Rhine-Westphalia election campaign kicks off with Energiewende criticism

Hannelore Kraft, premier and social democratic frontrunner in Germany’s most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), has criticised German chancellor Angela Merkel’s approach to energy policy, Kristian Frigelj writes in Die Welt. Kraft said she and her fellow SPD members had fought “against Merkel’s stop-go with the nuclear exit, against the aimless energy transition” while looking out for industry and energy-intensive companies, he writes. Merkel’s “seesaw gang must not be allowed to govern our country”, Kraft added. Elections in NRW, where Kraft faces Merkel’s fellow Christian Democrat Armin Laschet, will take place in May and are seen as an important bellwether for Germany’s federal elections in September.

Read the article in German here.

For background, see the CLEW dossier Vote2017 – German elections and the Energiewende.