Why Austria has yet to pass its 2023 boiler ban

Austria’s heating law, which aimed to ban new fossil-fuel heaters from 2023, has been stuck in parliament for months as the government has yet to obtain the necessary backing from the centre-left SPÖ.

Read the original German article here.

Austria is aiming to become climate neutral by 2040 but is struggling to clean up its heating sector, which is responsible for 10% of the country’s CO2.

30% of Austrian households are currently using fossil gas heaters, while 20% are running on oil and about 5% on coal.  The rest is either biomass or district heating.

To address this, the government led by the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Greens agreed to a phase-out plan for fossil heating as part of their coalition agreement struck in 2020.

In the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022 and the energy crisis that followed, Austrian Climate Protection Minister Leonore Gewessler presented the phase-out plan’s first draft in June of last year.

However, Gewessler’s plan is not supported by the opposition Social Democrats (SPÖ), who have a de-facto veto in Parliament.

“We are, after all, a federal state. That is why the Renewable Heat Act, which encroaches on the competencies of the federal states, requires a two-thirds majority in the National Council [the parliament],” explains Franz Angerer, managing director at the Austrian Energy Agency (AEA).

In the name of the fight against inflation, the centre-left decided to block all government initiatives requiring a two-thirds majority – including the boiler ban – leaving the industry perplexed.

“It is completely incomprehensible to us why it is like this. There was an agreement between the federal and state governments. They agreed on the cornerstones for a heating law,” Martina Prechtl-Grundnig, Managing Director of the Austrian Renewable Energies Industry Association (EEÖ), told Ö1 in May.

Gewessler’s phase-out plan

Besides the ban on new gas boilers by 2023, Gewessler’s proposal also calls for oil and coal heating systems to be replaced by climate-friendly alternatives whenever they need to be changed. New installations for those have already been banned since 2020.

In Austria, alternatives include heat pumps, district heating and wood ovens. Biogas plays only a marginal role.

The proposal also includes the mandatory replacement of old fossil-fuel heating systems from 2025 and the final phase-out of gas-fired heating systems by 2040.

“Every gas heating system we get rid of is a step out of dependence on Russian gas,” Gewessler said in June 2022 as she presented the first draft of the phase-out plan.

While the same issue had driven Germany’s three-way coalition to the brink of a government crisis, Gewessler’s much stricter proposal quickly received backing from the two government parties, even though it has not yet been signed into law.

“In the end, the SPÖ backtracking prevented a resolution from being passed, but the negotiations have not yet been concluded,” said Angerer.

Resistance remains

While the heating bill did not lead to a government crisis like in Berlin despite its stricter targets, some resistance still came up in Austria.

“Naturally, there were interest groups that worked against the draft, the oil trade and above all the gas industry, which tried to soften the law with the topic of ‘green gas’,” said Angerer, who said the processes could not be compared.

In parallel to the heating law debate, the government also mapped out the “continuous phase-out of oil and gas in the guidelines for building legislation”.

Besides that, the bill would not affect everyone immediately, particularly as only about a third of Austria’s population currently heat themselves with wood. In addition, gas heaters in existing buildings benefit from a carve-out: they can be replaced with another gas boiler in case of a total breakdown.

“Austria has similar supply structures to Germany; district heating is well-developed in most cities, but gas is less widespread among households,” Angerer added.

All eyes on Babler

Things could change, however, as the Social Democrats recently elected a new leader: the left-wing mayor of Traiskirchen, Andreas Babler.

This may be positive news for Austria’s heating bill as the SPÖ, under Babler, has voiced its openness to joining the two-thirds majority required to pass some of the government’s bills.

“We are now ready to talk,” said the new executive chairman of the club, Philip Kucher, in mid-June.

Before being elected, Babler said he did not understand why key climate legislation, such as the Energy Efficient Act, was being blocked in parliament.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald and Frédéric Simon]

Read more with Euractiv

France, Germany, Italy pledge close cooperation on critical raw materials

France, Germany and Italy will cooperate more closely on critical raw materials as ministers pledged in Berlin on Monday (26 June) to invest in joint projects and exchange views on the EU's currently debated Critical Raw Materials Act.