E ON chief criticises Germany on energy policy

The German government is overly focused on climate protection and lacks a coherent long-term energy strategy, the head of utility E.ON said ahead of a top-level policy meeting in Berlin this week.
Wulf Bernotat told German public television station ZDF that Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition was setting unrealistic efficiency targets and did not grasp the costs of its decision to phase out nuclear power.
His criticisms come ahead of a Tuesday energy "summit" in the German capital at which top government and industry officials will meet to discuss policy. The results of the meeting are to form the basis of a national energy plan to be unveiled in the autumn.
"The existing energy law states that proper policy must give equal weight to environmental protection, economic factors and security of supply," Bernotat said. "At the moment I have the impression that climate protection is clearly out in front." He called a government aim to boost energy efficiency by 3 percent per year "unrealistic" and accused politicians of failing to explain to Germans the impact of a nuclear phase-out.
Although Merkel is an advocate of nuclear energy she agreed to support a plan by the previous ruling coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens to phase out nuclear power by 2020 when she sealed a governing partnership with the SPD in 2005.
"I don't see an integrated approach," Bernotat said. "We are seeing a lot of individual measures from the government in different fields that are not part of an overall strategy."
Merkel made climate protection the centrepiece of her dual presidencies of the European Union and Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations this year and is now under pressure to deliver at home what she has preached abroad.
Under her lead the EU agreed to slash greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and Germany has said it is ready to go even further. But now Merkel's government must spell out how it will achieve the goals - an task that is complicated by the nuclear phase-out plan.