The fight over Germany's energy policy has drawn in an unlikely critic. Herbert Diess, the man who ran Volkswagen until 2022, has turned his fire on the country's economy minister, Katherina Reiche, accusing her of steering energy policy in a direction that hurts ordinary consumers rather than helping them.
Diess, once one of the loudest voices in German industry pushing for a faster shift to electric cars and cleaner power, argues that the current course is muddled and consumer unfriendly. His verdict is blunt. In his view the minister is working against the very people her policy is supposed to serve.
Why Diess is angry
Reiche, a Christian Democrat who took the economy and energy brief last year, has cast herself as the guardian of affordability, promising to keep the lights on and the bills manageable. Diess sees something different. He points to signals that, in his telling, favour big fossil fuel interests and gas over the cheaper, cleaner options households could benefit from.
One flashpoint is a proposal to scrap support for small rooftop solar systems, those under 25 kilowatts, the kind of panels a family might put on a house. To critics like Diess, cutting that help pulls the rug from under exactly the consumers who want to take control of their own energy costs, while doing little to solve the bigger problems.
A familiar complaint
The criticism fits a pattern Diess has voiced for years. He has long complained that German policy sends unclear signals, switching subsidies on and off, propping up diesel, and neglecting charging infrastructure and cheap electricity. The result, he says, is confusion for customers and a transition that keeps stalling instead of speeding up. He once described the official handling of the energy shift as resembling a state of paralysis.
Coming from a former car industry chief rather than an environmental campaigner, the attack carries a particular sting. Diess is not arguing from the fringe. He is speaking as someone who spent years trying to move a giant carmaker toward electric power and who watched policy help or hinder that effort.
The minister under pressure
Reiche has faced a steady drumbeat of criticism since taking office, from the Greens, from renewable energy groups, and from watchdogs who accuse her of leaning too far toward the interests of gas companies. Her defenders say she is simply being realistic about cost and supply in a country that still needs reliable power while it builds out renewables.
The row matters beyond the personalities. It goes to a question every German household feels in its bills. Will the coming decade of energy policy make power cheaper and cleaner, or will it protect established industries at the consumer's expense? Diess has made clear which way he thinks the minister is leaning, and he is not alone in worrying about the answer.