[Skybird]

FOCUS comments:
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Chancellor Olaf Scholz has put an end to the nuclear dispute that paralyzed the CDU/CSU for weeks. For Economics Minister Habeck, this may even turn out to be a success; the FDP, on the other hand, will have to swallow the 2023 phase-out. And the chancellor is making a bet with the whole thing.

What at first glance looks like a painful defeat for Robert Habeck and his Greens turns out to be a success on closer inspection. The chancellor's word of power on the vexed nuclear issue is a blessing for the vice chancellor - not even in his own party can he now be accused of caving in to his rivals from the FDP.

With his policy decision, the chancellor has freed his larger coalition partner from an ugly suspicion that climate activists harbor against the Greens. That in case of doubt, the Greens do not follow their green conscience and their anti-nuclear DNA, but rather their power. This is another reason why Habeck can live well with this Scholz decision. He may have to cross the "red line" that his Greens drew for him just last weekend, but he was forced to do so by a stronger force: the chancellor. If need be, this can also be used to create a victim myth that is suitable for the Green Party.

In a compromise, only one party ever pays the price. Scholz's decision is also at the expense of the FDP. The FDP will now have to phase out nuclear power earlier than it last wanted - by April 2023 at the latest. That's a high price to pay, by the way.

A party that defines itself as "open to technology," and even more so has made this its progressive brand essence, must now withdraw from a technology that other countries consider to be the hope of the future par excellence, such as Silicon Valley, which is specifically investing billions in the next generation of nuclear power.

Now to the Chancellor: in soccer, what Scholz is currently demonstrating on the soccer field of the traffic light coalition is called a "penalty without a goalkeeper." The compromise - all three nuclear power plants will run until next year, but then it's over - seemed obvious. Scholz just had to seize the favorable opportunity and casually push the round thing into the square goal.

For a chancellor who constantly has to face uncomfortable questions about his leadership, this was a gift.

Whether it will for Germany, however, is written in the stars. The country is now making a bet with Scholz at the head of government: in the end, the energy transition will work. And it will do so without domestic coal, without Russian gas and without nuclear energy, which is not harmful to the climate. Germany is the only country in the EU that has set fixed phase-out dates for coal and nuclear that are relatively close (now seven years). Other countries in Europe have taken a broader view, overriding their own ideologically based decisions against nuclear.

So one can only hope that all goes well. Whether it does or not won't be known for a few years. Probably not until Olaf Scholz has long since retired.
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The bet won't work, because it can't. Politics can neither rewrite the rules of mathematics, nor change the laws of physics by amending laws.

Therefore it would be enough to know at least some of the four basic arithmetic operations: Addition and subtraction. This would already be much more advanced than the children's game "Wishing wishes".