Offshore wind: Eight state leaders warn Reiche of 23,000 jobs at risk

Eight German state premiers have sent a joint letter to Economy Minister Katherina Reiche (CDU) demanding major changes to her planned reform of the Offshore Wind Energy Act, the news agencies Reuters and dpa-AFX reported on Friday; the Handelsblatt newspaper also reported on the letter. According to dpa, the signatories include the coastal states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the city-states of Hamburg and Bremen, as well as Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Saarland; Reuters also lists North Rhine-Westphalia. The states see an "urgent need for action" in the ongoing legislative process, backing the Bundesrat, which on 16 October called for the two-stage procedure to be scrapped.

According to the letter, a stall in expansion could cost about 23,000 of the 49,000 jobs in the offshore wind industry within four years, along with about 24 billion euros in lost sales. The states want a "one-time, clearly conditioned and legally secure option to return" sites already won whose projects are no longer economically viable, with the areas then quickly re-tendered. They reject the planned two-stage procedure, under which sites would first be awarded without state price protection: "The planned two-stage approach is harmful and should be dropped without replacement," the letter says, according to Reuters. The target of 70 gigawatts by 2045 must remain reliable, it adds.

The background is a sharp drop in interest in tenders in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Two North Sea sites totalling 2.5 gigawatts drew no bids in August 2025, and this year's tenders were postponed to 2027. The industry points to sharply higher financing, material and project costs. Reiche said in early September that the reform would strengthen cost efficiency, investment security and industrial resilience, arguing that the existing rules encouraged risky bids without ensuring that projects get built. The offshore wind industry association BWO estimates that each missing gigawatt puts about 3.5 billion euros in orders at stake.