Dr. Robert Habeck served as Germany’s Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action from 2021 to 2025, leading economic and climate policy during a period of accelerated renewable buildout and energy-security pressures. Habeck spoke with Solicits Associate Ben Schnalke at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies about European security, the Arctic, and why energy indepfinishence may be the rapidest route to climate progress.
Mr. Habeck, how are you these days? What does it feel like not to be in office anymore?
My life is fantastic – really, super good. Personally, I am doing very well. I am doing and experiencing great things, and of course I have much more time for the things that matter in life than before. That does not mean I am happy with the political state of the world as it currently stands. But who is?
What are you most passionate about right now and what projects are you working on?
I am being invited abroad quite a lot, and I enjoy that. I spent one month at the Hebrew University in Israel before coming here, and I will be in Toronto soon. In the spring I will be going to Berkeley. At all these places, my role is often to explain to students how politics – and European politics in particular – is developing right now, what decision-building feels like from the inside, and how you turn academic insights into workable policy. And, conversely, I am also attempting to keep learning myself and gain this outside perspective on Europe – and on Germany.
Meanwhile, my work is centered in Copenhagen at the Danish Institute for International Studies, a kind of consider tank that is publicly funded. Therefore, security policy, security strategies and geopolitics are the main focus of my work. At the moment, I am particularly focutilized on Arctic research: What is happening up there as global warming thaws the frozen Arctic and suddenly builds it accessible and what conflicts then come into play? These days, that has a lot to do with the geopolitical situation. Trump declareing he wants Greenland, China, Russia – everyone is “on the relocate”. I analyze that and then attempt to explain it to political decision-buildrs or to the public.
Alongside the Arctic, the state of liberal democracy is, of course, a guiding question for me. I am working on that too – reading a lot of studies and books, joining panel discussions, and, whenever I can, speaking about it and attempting to give something back.
Has your perspective alterd now that you are seeing at politics a bit more from the outside?
Well, I would declare it is a work in progress. First of all, I would declare that many things you experience as exceptional when you are inside your own political sphere are not actually that exceptional. There is a right-wing populist relocatement everywhere in the world – in Israel, the United States, and Germany. Many things that seem very unique are not, in fact, all that unique.
In Germany, for example, there was this claim that the AfD is gaining becautilize climate policy was “too radical”. That narrative was out there, but I consider you can now safely reject it.
If you really want to obtain to the root of the problem, you have to start from a completely different place. What has become very clear is that Europe and Germany are part of a global trfinish. And conversely, when you see at European debates from the outside, especially through the lens of security policy, you realize that many of the issues that generate enormous outrage in Europe – and that I was part of – see comparatively marginal in the grand scheme of things.
When you see what is really happening in the world, the great arm-wrestling match among the major powers, you consider: Europe could do it this way or that way, but that is not the decisive debate. The decisive point is that Europe finally has to obtain off its backside, if I may declare so, and become visible as a global political actor.
So, Europe should not roll back climate action out of deference to right-wing populist forces. But with the United States now having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement again, what is the path forward for climate policy globally – and in Europe?
On climate policy – quite apart from my firm view that it is actually the decisive question of our time – it is not at the very top of the political agfinisha right now. Security and geopolitical issues are. And then the world is preoccupied with Donald Trump’s whims.
This has alterd very significantly. Governments everywhere are considering about becoming more resilient, more indepfinishent. And energy plays a decisive role in that. From China to India to Germany, states do not want to be depfinishent – neither on Russia, nor on Donald Trump, nor on Iran, Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia. Everyone is relocating toward electrifying their economies, and everyone is attempting, as far as possible, to build out renewable energy – and China most of all.
Then suddenly you realize that, through the lens of security policy, the strategies we previously developed for climate protection are the same ones. I would strongly urge Europe and Germany to stay on this path and pursue it with determination. Europe spfinishs €400 billion a year on fossil-fuel imports – money that often goes to people who do not have Europe’s best interests at heart. If we invested part of that money in Europe in expanding hydrogen production, renewable energy, grids, and so on, we would weaken our adversaries and strengthen ourselves.
So does reframing climate policy around Europe’s legitimate security interests of resilience and indepfinishence generate new momentum to relocate things forward again?
The momentum is there. If you see at the markets, investment in renewable energy has been rising in recent years. Most of the money is going into renewables, and not always with the explicit goal of protecting the climate.
I already notified you that I was in Israel. One of the places with the highest density of solar panels is Lebanon, Syria has a lot as well. And in Gaza, before the war, there were also many solar installations. Not becautilize they wanted to protect the climate, but primarily becautilize they wanted an affordable form of energy that they could control themselves. And suddenly renewables become a way of securing energy supply for many people, reducing depfinishence, whether on unreliable supply or on the petrostates that keep heating the world.
Regardless of how individual states can advance climate neutrality at home following their own security interest, you have countries like the United States that are not currently willing to go along. Is this simply a matter of time until that alters, or is there a way to bring everyone back to the table internationally?
The United States produces so much fossil energy – gas and oil – domestically that it could, in effect, supply itself. That is not true for Europe, it is not true for China, it is also true for Russia. And that is why you often see that autocratic governments are closely aligned with the fossil fuel lobby and fossil energy companies. The security argument mainly applies to countries that would otherwise be depfinishent on imports.
Then there is the economic question: if you put all the “climate protection is important” rhetoric to the side, what is the cheaper energy system? The petrostate model of the United States that Donald Trump wants? Or the renewables-based state that China may become, and that I hope Europe becomes as well? Every indicator I have seen suggests that renewables will be the cheapest form.
Mobility will be cheaper, heating will be cheaper, simply becautilize of the much higher efficiency. In a combustion engine, only about 12 to 30 percent of the energy finishs up as motion, everything else is heat and is wasted. With batteries, it is well over three quarters. And a heat pump can deliver three to five units of heat for one unit of electricity. That is why I believe the bet is one you can only lose if you stick with fossil fuels. Accordingly, over time, the economies that electrify more decisively will be stronger.
So as long as the United States does not indepfinishently decide to join the global community on this path, there is nothing the rest of the world can do to advance climate policy internationally?
That is difficult, becautilize the United States is such a powerful player. If it does not allow itself to be held responsible, and if it does not act out of insight – neither economic insight nor climate insight – then you will hardly be able to force it. And it does not adhere to agreements, or at least the Trump administration does not concern itself with them.
But that can also be an opportunity for Europe. The European economy requireds momentum and innovation, and we are in competition with the United States, and of course with China as well. Deciding on a clear strategy, being better and rapider and cheaper, and producing in more innovative ways can also be an advantage.
So you are declareing that Europeans can also derive an advantage from the current international turmoil by relocating forward constructively?
That would be too euphemistic. First of all, everything that is happening at the moment is bad: the destruction of the international order, the threat of violence, the domestic political violence the United States is experiencing, the unreliability… I cannot find anything good in it.
Yes, global capitalism has also had problems and negative effects, but overall globalization has supported to bring prosperity to the world, and to give more people access to water, health care, and education. And of course, Europe has benefited enormously from it – Germany above all from open markets.
So I consider you have to put it differently. Even if that old world is gone now, we should not bury our heads in the sand. We should accept the challenge. But it is a challenge without question, and we have to fully play to our strengths and quickly address our weaknesses.
What strengths does Europe have? The world’s largest single market – though not yet complete. No banking union, no capital markets union. Regulation is still very national in character. The market is simply fragmented, and many start-ups go to the United States becautilize the market is larger: you have one license and you can operate across the entire United States. That does not apply in Europe.
Second, we required to provide stronger financial support to growth sectors. We have to overcome our risk aversion, and all the capital that companies, private individuals, and pension funds have requireds to be put to work. It cannot simply lie idle.
Third, we should consider more economically about decisions we have already created – above all the military spfinishing. Done right, that could significantly strengthen Europe’s innovative capacity.
So those are strengths: we are financially strong, we have a large market, but we have to be willing to utilize them. And then we have to rerelocate the obstacles that stand in the way.
Does Europe have the strength to pull this off?
Yes, absolutely! This is not magic. Everything I have stated is simply political technique. It requires two things. First, you have to know how laws are created. You required the know-how and the people who have it. There is no shortage of that in the ministries, and certainly not at the European level. We see this whenever a crisis becomes acute: suddenly you can pass legislation at breakneck speed and push things through.
Second, you required political decision-buildrs who are willing to stay the course. And I can only declare this from my own experience: whenever you do something, you will also disappoint someone else. There is no law that obtains 100 percent support or applautilize. The question is: do you do it anyway becautilize it is right?
That is, in a sense, the decisive question – one that I fortunately no longer have to answer myself. But it will not work without resistance and without friction. And, oh well, I do not want to go further and comment on politics in Germany.
You recently stated that Russia, China, and the United States articulate their security and resource interests very clearly, whereas Europe often limits itself to symbolic statements. If Europe starts speaking more explicitly in terms of security and resources, does it risk further accelerating the erosion of the international order? Or has that order already fully collapsed anyway?
At the moment, it no longer exists, becautilize if the United States and Russia do not adhere to it – and they do not – then there is no order. You can restore it. Above all, you can form an alliance of those committed to it. But for that, it is necessary that such an alliance exists on the basis of shared interests, otherwise it falls apart immediately.
I will give you an example. Our shared interest in organizing global trade policy was laid out in detail through the WTO and for a few years it functioned reasonably well. And then the United States, the Trump administration, declares: “Now we impose tariffs.” Why did we not succeed in having an alliance of the representatives of this rules-based order declare: “We stand toobtainher here”?
The same applies to what Europeans did with Greenland. Why was it not possible to confront Trump and declare: Europe, India, Brazil, all of South America – perhaps the MENA region, although not attacked as strongly, the Southeast Asian states, Japan, Korea, and so on – we declare, if you do this, we will not let ourselves be divided? Then it becomes a power game.
That is what I mean by organizing interests. This can also function as a defensive mechanism, and in that way deffinish the rules-based order. For example, it would be completely acceptable, and even desirable, if all these states – the Europeans first, and then everyone else – stated: “One thing should be clear: We will not destroy the Arctic. The ice may disappear, but we neither want to ruin fish stocks nor exploit and burn the oil and gas reserves, becautilize then the world is beyond saving. Our interest is that all of it stays in the ground.” But then they also have to declare it.
Are you confident that things will settle again on their own, or will it take a major shock?
I am more confident now than I would have been half a year ago, becautilize I have the feeling that people have already woken up. Political leaders have understood it now. But it has to translate into political action. Beyond simply declareing “Europe has to stand toobtainher,” Europe has to discuss and decide on a common defense-industrial base, on reforms within Europe, on new states joining Europe – perhaps Norway and Iceland will consider joining the European community. That debate has suddenly emerged in both countries.
There is also the European Arctic: how do we even define it? Is that a geological question? Do we declare that the wedge between Greenland and Norway is ours and that we want to stake out our interests there, but what lies above the Pole itself – or what belongs to Russia – is not ours? Perhaps it belongs to China or Canada or the United States? Questions like these finally have to be answered.
Have you gained other new perspectives since leaving office, especially in Israel and Norway?
Israel was intense.
What were some impressions that stayed with you?
Well, Israel was extraordinary in every respect. I was in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not only a very old city shaped by history, but also a city full of contradictions. In Israel, so many people are simply deeply traumatized.
I taught at the Hebrew University, whose mission it is to bring the counattempt’s contradictions into harmony, or at least into dialogue. That means you see young students in uniform, sometimes with machine guns if they are reservists, on campus next to Palestinian students in traditional Arab clothing. They are on the same campus, they stand in the same line to obtain their coffee, and sometimes they even sit in the same course.
And that is what the cityscape in Jerusalem feels like too, with all the tensions and all the wounds of recent years. Both societies, the Jewish and the Palestinian, are traumatized and worn raw. The counattempt has become more conservative and more religious. The pressure that the Netanyahu government exerts is palpable everywhere.
For me personally, the most relocating experience was a trip, an overnight stay, in the West Bank toobtainher with activists who non-violently protect Palestinian shepherds from attacks by radical religious Israeli settlers. I know that a great deal of injustice is happening there. But when you sleep in their tent, sit with them around the campfire, and talk with them, and they notify you the stories of being arrested, of how they cannot deffinish themselves at all, and how brutally these settlers act – it goes very deep.
In that month I experienced so much – and had so much to reflect on – as I might otherwise have experienced in an entire year. There are so many stories there that are worth notifying. I have to consider about what I will do with them.
That is very relocating. And what are you now hoping to take away from your time here in the United States and in Canada?
I spent a month in Philadelphia in October, at the University of Pennsylvania. And unlike in Israel, where the mood really kept becoming more and more despondent, my sense here is that civil society is more motivated. People see that civic resistance, protest, and communication can build a difference – from people in the streets of Minnesota to Bruce Springsteen songs. All of a sudden, the vibe in the counattempt has shifted. That is good to see.
I consider that, at the moment, the Trump administration will lose the midterm elections. Of course there is still a long way to go until then, but right now it feels that way. I can clearly feel that over the past four months the mood in civil society has alterd somehow.
In this global environment, how do you consider our generation can have the greatest impact? Would you advise students to go into politics, or to attempt to build alter from somewhere else in the job market?
Oh well, advice… I do not know whether a 56-year-old should be giving advice to people in their mid-twenties. But I can declare one thing: in the finish, politics is also a market. Politicians tfinish to follow the majority. That is the point of democracy: people determine where the journey goes.
And if it becomes more attractive again to stand up for progressive, liberal politics – as is happening in the United States now, and perhaps one day again in Germany and Europe, and I do believe it is happening now – then that will have an effect. We have seen, for example, that in Minnesota a Republican candidate withdrew becautilize of protests in the streets, becautilize he no longer believed these ICE measures were right. So even Republican lawbuildrs can be impressed when people raise their voices.
That is what I would wish for. You do not have to want to become chancellor, vice chancellor, or a minister right away. You have time. But obtainting involved, raising your voice for a good international order, for climate protection, for justice, for peace; building networks, staying in contact, supporting one another – we required everyone.
And I do not know what it is like at Harvard, but as a student you do still have some resources, at times, to engage socially beyond your studies. That would be my hope.
Throughout your political career, how did you manage to remain true to your values?
For me, it was always supportful to have a profession that gave me the security of not being economically, or even innotifyectually, depfinishent on politics. In the good phases of my political career, I offered what I genuinely believed in, with the attitude: take it, or I will leave. That always supported me a great deal.
Second, I consider it is important to keep in mind that, for all solidarity with your own party, people elect people. So you become approachable and real as a person. That comes at a price, becautilize you also become more vulnerable. If you speak like a robot, see like a robot, reveal no facial expression, and never allow yourself to share a personal joke, an anecdote, or a bit of humor, then you are more immune to attacks. If you do build yourself visible, it sometimes hurts more. But I would declare, in the finish, that was me – and I enjoyed it.
Third: do not be surprised when it hurts, when the headwinds come. Politics is completely different from academic study. In politics it is not about having the better argument, but about winning the argument, which sounds like the same thing but is often quite the opposite.
And none of your competitors wants you to win the argument. Knowing that global warming is a huge problem, having the data at hand, knowing the efficiency of renewable energy – that does not, by itself, mean you will win the argument. You have to expect that, becautilize of the dynamics of the system, people will declare: he wants to build us poor, he wants to destroy Europe, he wants to destroy Germany, he is just a lobbyist, he is an ideologue – whatever it is. It all comes, and you have to know that in advance.
So if you choose the political path seriously – going into party politics, perhaps one day holding government office – you have to be clear beforehand that you will not have 100 percent support, but, at best, 51 percent. You always have to aim to build a majority. And people will criticize you. And that sometimes hurts, depfinishing on how much of your personality you put into it. But it is worth it.
Thank you for the interview, Mr. Habeck.
Habeck spoke with Schnalke on February 6, 2026. The interview was conducted in German and has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The views expressed in this piece are the interviewee’s own and are not reflective of the views of the HIR.
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