In an interview published in the national Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Wolfgang Kubicki, the vice president of the Bundestag and FDP member, has warned that Germany faces the very real prospect of going bankrupt due to the government’s inability to find a solution to the current energy crisis.

He went on to state that due to the government’s paralysis, many Germans now feel that their nation is well on its way to becoming a “dysfunctional state.”

He said, “Infrastructure, energy prices and the inability of the Bundeswehr [the country’s armed forces] to protect us are challenges that require immediate action from the German authorities, otherwise things will go wrong.”

He went on to hammer Economy Minister Robert Habeck for purchasing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the US for “a lot of money” while continuing to refuse to mine cheaper domestic shale gas within Germany, “for purely ideological reasons.”

He added the German approach to nuclear power plants, which need to continue to operate during the energy crisis, needs to be revised.

Commenting on Habeck’s latest decisions, Kubicki said, “We don’t want gas and oil supplies from Russia any more, at the same time our ‘green’ friends are restarting coal-fired power plants, while preventing a reasonable extension of the life of nuclear power plants.”

He also criticized the German plan to use financial assistance to try and get the nation through the crisis, saying, “If we continue to pursue the policies of paying out money for years as part of the fight against the energy crisis, then we are at risk of national bankruptcy if not state socialism.”

He went on, “This money cannot be printed or covered by taxpayers. We cannot exist in a state of financial crisis for a long time due to the risk of shortage of funds to support other areas.”