Five Observations

 1.  The Bundestag effort (by the SPD-led coalition) to pass the heat-pump agenda before summer vacation....failed.  

What now?  Oddly enough....the CDU Party has stepped in and said that they want to contribute to a 'restart', and modify various parts of the SPD-Green-FDP agenda.

I'll just say from a private-home-owner prospective....this looked like a very crappy conceived agenda, with a high-price tag attached.  If you'd approached this and said....natural gas/heating oil furnaces could continue,  but we'd offer you zero-VAT (sales tax) for a heat-pump installation for the next three years, it would have gone better.

Am I personally anti-heat pump?  I have three general problems: (1) noise-level is a problem, (2) there's a fair amount of pre-planning required for installation...figure at least a thousand Euro on some technician writing up the plan in massive detail, and (3) heat pumps are noted for problems in severe winter periods (like heavy snow blocking the exhaust).  

I should add....if you were consumed with passion for carbon-neutral situations....the heat pump is probably not the solution for you (if you don't give a damn about carbon-neutral....then full-speed ahead).  

2.  Euthanasia law failed yesterday in the Bundestag?  Yeah.

What I'll say is that the SPD-coalition had constructed a very complicated and process-driven euthanasia law, and more than half the members questioned the complications (if you really needed this much paperwork to have medical help in committing suicide).  

3.  The Chancellor (Scholz) failing to sell the various agenda items?

Look, back six months before the election....various people stood up and said that Scholz as mayor of Hamburg had NEVER been the salesman of any agenda or position.  So we are almost 18 months into the SPD coalition, and finding that as Chancellor....Scholz rarely if ever....sells agendas.

This past weekend, they dragged him out to a public forum show (live).  It was one of the rare times in the past year when he did a fair amount of talking.  What it generally reminded folks of?  Chancellor Merkel.  She was also a poor salesperson of agendas.  

4.  Hundred days prior to state elections in Hessen and Bavaria. 

It would appear that the CDU/CSU folks will win.  Questions arise now over 2nd place, and who will be the coalition partner in both state elections.

5.  Conversations now taking place in Thuringia (the state) over the likely winner of the 2024 election (figured in September of 2024).  Most now expect the AfD Party to win, and no party will agree to form a coalition.  Unless AfD crosses the 50-percent point....the 2nd place party (likely to be the CDU) will be given the chance to form a state gov't.

So....the CDU is sitting at a table presently with the likely third-place contender....the Linke Party.  The odds of a CDU-Linke Party coalition?  That's a wild idea.

Would CDU-Linke be enough on votes?  No....it's likely to require the 4th place winner (the SPD) to be part of this coalition as well.

If you go out and admit that the CDU will partner with the Linke Party?  I would imagine out of every hundred CDU voters....at least twenty will not accept this type of partnership.  Who would the twenty go to?  Unknown.  It is conceivable that the twenty might say 'what-the-hell' and be flipped into AfD voters.  This would help in some way to pace the AfD folks to near 50-percent of the voting polls. 

Even to imagine such a scenario falling into place....a year prior to the national election....would be a serious problem.