German Chancellor Friedrich Merz once had a reputation as a fiscal conservative. Once he was elected this year, though, he discovered that many things in the country need fixing, including its renowned industrial sector. Now his government is exploring ways to fund multibillion-euro subsidies for the most energy-intensive companies. While this might buy time, it won’t fix the grave mistakes that have caused Germany’s economic crisis.

According to a report this weekend by the Financial Times, Berlin wants to spend €4 billion on reducing companies’ electricity bills, with the government paying up to half of the costs for them. Currently, 350 companies are eligible — but German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche wants to extend this to 2,200, according to the FT.

Reiche and Merz hope to get this past the EU’s rules on state aid, arguing that the entire eurozone will benefit if its largest economy recovers. Germany was the only G7 economy which failed to grow for the last two years, and might be in for a third year of stagnation. Something has to be done, but energy subsidies are, at best, an interim measure while the government works on fixing the underlying problems. Chief among these is the self-inflicted energy crisis.

Despite weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels, Germany remains extremely dependent on imports, which make up around two-thirds of the energy it consumes. A massive expansion of the renewable sector was supposed to scale that back, but wind and sunshine are, by definition, unpredictable. In the first quarter of this year, Germany produced most of its electricity from fossil fuels due to a lack of wind.

It is this combination of unpredictable renewables and expensive imports that is causing trouble for energy-intensive industries in Germany. They never know their running costs from one year to the next. Subsidies would level this risk if they were high enough and long-term, but investors know that subsidies are politically fickle.

One association of steel and chemical workers has now written a strongly-worded letter to Merz. “We don’t want subsidies that get distributed as if by a liege lord, but decent parameters so that work and wealth creation might have a future again in Germany,” their letter argues, adding that subsidizing energy costs would “only treat the symptoms but not tackle the underlying causes of the energy crisis.”

The workers blame the government squarely for this, arguing that it needlessly ended German nuclear energy in 2023 when the sector had once generated nearly a third of the country’s electricity. With no intention to reverse its nuclear exit, Germany has increased its dependency on fluctuating renewables and imported energy. Despairing at this policy, which they say cost 100,000 industry jobs last year alone, the workers write: “Never before has our electricity supply been so expensive and unreliable.”

Many of their bosses agree. ArcelorMittal, the world’s second-largest steelmaker, turned down €1.3 billion in subsidies last month intended to entice it to convert two plants in Germany to carbon-neutral production. The company argued it’s not worth it even with the subsidies, because the running energy costs would be too high.

Germany’s ailments boil down to one simple truth: the third-largest economy in the world must have a steady power supply. Renewables and imports play a crucial part, of course, but they can never be fully depended on. A little less wind, a cloudy year, or a falling out with a supplier, and costs spiral up for industry and consumers.

The uncomfortable solution stares Germany in the face: it needs a domestic nuclear sector. Its neighbors can see that. In a recent survey of international energy experts and observers conducted, the World Energy Council asked: “Which part of Germany’s energy transition policy do you believe your country could adopt?” The number of Germany’s neighbors in the EU who answered: “Ending the use of nuclear power plants”? Zero. It’s time Germany woke up to the realities of its self-inflicted pain. Berlin cannot spend its way out of the mistakes of the past.

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Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and writer. She is the author, most recently, of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.

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