How the Electricity Feed-In Law (Stromeinspeisungsgesetz) Came to Be Passed by the German Parliament, Enabling Renewable Energies to Establish Their Position in the Market - Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy - page 484

it possible to curb the onslaught. However, the delaying tactics
employed by the large electrical utilities cost small and medium-
sized operating enterprises a fortune, with some unable to
survive financially as a result. This is how these large companies
promote, protect and continue to breed new centralistic structures
within the energy sector.
Since attack can sometimes be the best form of defence and
with a new political constellation brought about by the change
of government in 1998, the German Renewable Energies Law
(Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz)—in full the Act on Granting Priority
to Renewable Energy Sources—promoting large-scale generation
of electricity from various renewable energy sources, was passed
and implemented in 2000, as successor litigation to the Feed-in
Law. Once again it was essentially Dr Hermann Scheer MP who,
now a member of the ruling party, promoted the campaign und
protected the law right up to his death in 2010, while those
“responsible” within the government had to be dragged to the ball,
as was the case with the successful lawsuit at the European Court
of Justice, concerning the approval of the “subsidies” granted
under the Feed-In Law.
Up until the end of the 1990s, the front line in the battle had
been clearly defined: on the one side, decentralised renewable
energy and on the other, centralistic fossil and nuclear energy
sources. Since then, however, the political demands of the
population have forced those in favour of centralised structures
to become active within the decentralised renewable energies
sector—even if only to provide themselves with a devious alibi.
In the eyes of the centralised energy supply industry, which had
grown so mighty in the spirit of the Kaiser, Siemens and Deutsche
Bank, the current political state of afairs cannot possibly last much
longer. Meanwhile, the industry acts according to the American
slogan: “If you can't beat them, join them!” When the Feed-In
Law was replaced by the Renewable Energies Law, the energy
sector itself succeeded in becoming a beneficiary of the “subsidies”
available for the supply of renewable energies.
Those wishing to see and contribute to a just and sustainable
ecological and social development in Germany, would be advised
to sever ties with the unscrupulous profiteering which is being
carried out behind the camouflage of deceitful labels such as
“sustainable” and “renewable”. Otherwise their own credibility