Chancellor’s Christmas tree lights on for short time

Energy shortage facing Europe prompts power conservation.

BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — The Christmas tree outside Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s office in Berlin will not be lit as long this year, a government spokesperson said Thursday, as Germany seeks to save energy through the winter.

The lights on the tree will only shine for four hours each evening from four o’clock to eight, instead of burning constantly as they did last year, the spokesperson told AFP.

The fir, plucked from the forests of nearby Brandenburg, is decorated with 4,920 low-energy LED lights, which will consume 287 watt-hours.

A few hundred meters from the chancellery, the Christmas tree in front of the Brandenburg Gate will also only be lit for six hours a day instead, as opposed to 24.

Floodlights that illuminate some 200 public monuments and buildings in Berlin — including its red-brick city hall, State Opera House and Charlottenburg Palace — have also been turned off overnight since July.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February upturned global energy markets, sending prices soaring and confronting Europe with the possibility of shortages over the winter.

To avoid acute problems around the turn of the year Germany has set about tapping new sources of natural gas and encouraging energy saving measures.