Germany well-placed on energy to get through winter: Olaf Scholz

Germany is well-placed to get through this winter with enough energy thanks to efforts to shore up supplies, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday, dismissing criticism from the opposition.

Center-right opposition leader Friedrich Merz charged in parliament that Scholz's three-party coalition lacks any strategic thinking and assailed a decision this week to stick in principle to a long-held plan to shut down Germany's last three nuclear power plants at the end of this year. The government, he said, may be damaging German companies irreparably.

An unusually combative Scholz responded that his coalition has worked since it took office in December to prepare for problems that ministers from Merz's party in the previous government failed to anticipate.

He pointed to a decision to require filling natural gas storage facilities for the fuel used to heat homes, generate electricity and power industry. Those facilities are now over 86% full, at a time when Russia has cut off gas supplies ..