“SPD: Government coalition of CDU and FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia endangers 18,000 jobs in wind power sector”

The oppositional Social Democrats (SPD) in North Rhine-Westphalia say that the restrictive wind power policy of the new CDU-FDP government coalition endangers 18,000 jobs in the state, reports news agency dpa in an article carried by Aachener Zeitung. The coalition wants to “fully pull the plug on the Energiewende”, said Michael Hübner, deputy chairman of the SPD state parliamentary group. In their coalition agreement, the parties had decided larger distances between wind turbines and residential areas, reducing the available space for wind power production in the state by 80 percent, writes dpa.

Read the article in German here.

Find background on the election in NRW here and key points of the coalition treaty here. For more information on German federal elections and the Energiewende, see this CLEW dossier.