Something is rotten in the state of Germany

For "Vreme" from Bonn

On Sunday, January 14, two pictures marked Germany. On the first, ten thousand people are in Potsdam, a small town south of Berlin where the elite live who despise the hustle and bustle of the capital, but would still like to be close to it.

photo: ap photo

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his minister Analena Berbock were also in the crowd - both live in Potsdam, where they directly ran for parliament in the last elections, against each other. Scholz won convincingly, but Berbokova, of course, entered the parliament through the "side door", through the party list.

Now the two of them, the faces of the so-called traffic light coalition, which is historically unpopular with the people, were at a protest "against the Alternative for Germany" and the right turns in the country. The flags of various parties and initiatives were flying.

People also took to the streets elsewhere, spurred on by media revelations about an alleged master plan secretly hatched by right-wingers - to expel foreigners and disloyal Germans from Germany. The protest in Potsdam was supposed to show the "bright Germany", which stands against the "dark", as the left-liberal press call the right-wingers, opponents of migration or anti-corona measures.

In the second picture, the same number of people, ten thousand, are in the dark, lit only by the flames of a large bonfire. German flags are flying everywhere. This is the scene in the Bavarian town of Parkstetten, a protest against the "pest" policy of the Federal Government.

So many people managed to gather one single man, Thomas Willibald, a Bavarian comedian-farmer with two million followers on social networks. "We are fed up with the party's trumpeting", he wrote, calling for provisions and German flags to be brought to the protest, but no alcohol.

Various "representatives of society and experts" spoke, but not politicians. Willibald previously supported the Paor protests that paralyzed a good part of Germany last week. But many were shocked by the fact that one comedian managed to gather so many people on the ice by the fire.

Why is dissatisfaction bubbling up from all sides in the most powerful country in Europe? And will Chancellor Scholz's weak government know how to get out of it, or will it perhaps collapse before its time and send the country into early elections and a historic right-wing triumph?

THE PEOPLE SUPPORT PAORE

On Monday (January 15), the "week of rage" symbolically ended in Berlin, with thousands of tractors in front of the Brandenburg Gate. The poor are determined to persevere in opposing the Government's austerity measures that should go through their wallets.

Minister of Finance Christian Lindner also appeared in front of the crowd, who was booed during a speech in which he promised less relief for farmers. It was seven days of protests unlike any Germany had seen - tractors and tow trucks drove slowly through the center of every major city, along major roads and even highways.

In several polls, between 68 and 85 percent of citizens said they understood even the radical protests of farmers. It is just the latest in a series of slaps that Olaf Scholz's government has received in both polls and provincial elections since coming to power.

Scholz took the reins after the election two years ago, when his Social Democrats surprisingly defeated the Christian Democrats. Then the so-called traffic light coalition was formed, named after the colors of the three parties - red for the Social Democrats, green for the Greens and yellow for the Liberals.

It was an experiment, not only because for the first time in post-war history the country is led by a three-member coalition, but also because the Greens and Liberals in particular are like horns in a bag. That's why Scholz looks more like a peacemaker than a chancellor, a man who uses duct tape to keep the coalition together. He pays the price personally - just as this is the least liked government since polls have measured it (17 percent support), so Scholz is also the least liked chancellor (19 percent positive ratings) since 1997, since the public service measures the popularity of politicians in a regular poll Deutschlandtrend.

FALLING STANDARDS

The Russian aggression against Ukraine and the sanctions that followed against Russia contributed to this. The sequence of events could be fatal for the primacy of Germany as an exporting nation that, on cheap Russian energy, conquered the world with cars, machines and chemical products.

The thing is that official Berlin hardly even asks who blew up the two Nord Stream gas pipelines, although all traces lead to Kiev. This does not change anything in the generous support for Ukraine that comes from Germany. But, if it is still too early to hold a funeral for the German economy, it seems that something is really changing in society. The grueling years of crises - the euro crisis, Brexit, the refugee crisis, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine - ate their way into citizens' pockets, and undermined the old certainty that life in Germany is still carefree.

In the aforementioned survey, as many as 83 percent of citizens say that the situation in Germany gives cause for anxiety. Even a third believe that this will be a "bad year".

The predicament in which the semaphore coalition has been stuck since the beginning of the government was further tightened by the decision of the Constitutional Court in November. Namely, the government intended to "repackage" enormous billions from the special fund for combating the consequences of the pandemic into the energy transition fund. The court said that - it cannot. Because the Constitution obliges the Government not to create new debts except in emergency situations - the corona was such a situation, but those funds must not be spent on other things.

WHERE EVERYTHING IS SAVED

With some frowns, the authorities had to obey the Court and a hole of seventeen billion euros was opened in the budget for this year. The government will thus raise the price of a ton of carbon dioxide to 45 euros for polluters (it was originally planned to be 40 this year). This will come to drivers in the form of 1,5 cents more expensive per liter of fuel, according to the ADAC automobile club.

Among the series of measures is the gradual abolition of diesel subsidies for farmers - which is why the rebellion was born. At first, the authorities still wanted to tax agricultural machines as well as personal private vehicles, but that was abandoned when the hook and the hoe were raised.

Experts calculate that the abolition of subsidies on diesel will cost the peasants three or four thousand euros per year, that is, barely one or two percent of the profit. And yet, they decided to draw a red line. And not only them - along with paors, there were shippers, artisans, fishermen and restaurateurs on the streets.

Last week, from Wednesday to Friday, train drivers joined them, as one of the most important riders of the apocalypse. Because, when the trains don't run, then Germany is really collapsing. The train drivers, who have a separate union from other railway workers, are demanding wage increases of at least 555 euros per month and a reduction in working hours from 36 to 35 per week.

Economy Minister Robert Habek had a close encounter with angry paors when several dozen of them were waiting for the ferry he was taking to return from a holiday in the north of the country. The ferry had to make a left turn, and what looked like a lynch mob was condemned from all sides of the political spectrum. Joachim Ruckwid, the president of the powerful Association of Farmers, distanced himself from this. He also distanced himself from possible "right-wing elements" interfering in the protests, which Habek also warned against. "We are democrats and in our country political changes, if they are desirable, happen at the polling station", he said on behalf of almost a million German farmers.

RIGHT-WINGERS BETWEEN STRENGTHENING AND BANNING

The Paora protests were also supported by the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing party that, based on anti-immigrant sentiment and opposition to almost every policy of the government, reached 22-24 percent of support in polls.

For the authorities, on the other hand, the news came as if it had been ordered, which led to protests in Potsdam. Namely, these days the research platform Korektiv announced that a conspiratorial meeting of ten people, among them four AfD politicians, took place in that city in November. At the meeting, Martin Zellner, a well-known extremist from the "Identitarian Movement", allegedly presented the "remigration" plan. It is an old right-wing fantasy of ethnic and ideological cleansing - asylum seekers, foreigners, but also Germans who are not "assimilated" would have to leave Germany. That is, who are not valid Germans.

AfD dissociated itself from that meeting, announcing that it did not organize it or invite to it. Although the personal representative of party leader Alice Weidel was at the meeting, she says that she did not know anything about it, and that the representative did not know that Zellner would speak there either.

The alternative for Germany hangs over the head of a possible work ban procedure, which is being called for by more and more other politicians. Admittedly, it is a long shot and the question is whether the court would agree to mark the entire party as ready for unconstitutional action even though there are extreme elements in it.

And now, the most radical representatives of the party have spoken openly stating that "remigration" is their goal. It is nothing else, they say, than what they say publicly - that Germany must expel rejected asylum seekers. "We will return foreigners to their homelands. Millions of them. It's not a secret plan. That's a promise," AfD MP René Springer wrote online.

Chancellor Scholz counters this on the same network. "Whoever lives here, works here and accepts the fundamental values ​​of our democracy - he is one of us. Regardless of origin and skin color. Period," he wrote after the news that linguists had chosen the term "remigration" for the anti-word of the year.

It's one of the few things Scholz can make a point of these days, although the question is to what extent.

DANGEROUS COCKTAIL OR MISCHIEF

While the weekly "Spiegel" writes that the Paor protests came at a time of general frustration with the government, and that the radical right-wing factor is giving a poisonous cocktail, others think that the stories about the right-wing are just lies.

"As if the peasants, artisans and drivers are too stupid to have their own position, as if they are an extension of the extremists." Obviously, the politicians of the traffic light coalition have not yet realized that they themselves are the problem, not the protesters. Millions of citizens are deeply disappointed with the government", writes the most widely circulated tabloid "Bild".

This year, elections are held in three eastern states - Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia - and in each the AfD is the strongest in the polls with 32 to 36 percent support. In the last two provinces, the parties of the federal ruling coalition can't win even twenty percent - in total.

The Christian Democrats, who are the strongest party in the whole country, according to polls, will be wondering if the right-wingers could soon take over the government. Their popularity is recovering under party leader Friedrich Merz – a wealthy, hardline conservative who always opposed former Chancellor Angela Merkel and built his career as a manager of the Blackrock investment fund.

Until now, the other parties have created a sanitary cordon around the AfD (see "Vreme" 1701, "Right-wingers on the attack"), refusing any cooperation. But the question is how much Mertz will cut off that possibility even though it carries risks.

Such as the question of when it will become impossible to form a provincial or even a federal government without the AfD, without it again going to the mill of the right-wing. In the style of "here, again, everyone unites in some kind of coalition just to prevent us from ruling". Only, the division between "light" and "dark" Germany, which was forced in the midst of the refugee crisis, no longer ignites. Fewer and fewer people are ashamed to vote for the AfD and to say so publicly.

HOPE IN A LEFTIST

Certain hopes are placed in Sarah Wagenknecht, who only a few days ago founded her own party with the not-so-modest name "Sara Wagenknecht Alliance". After years of friction, the most popular German leftist left the Left party with several other associates.

Wagenknecht wrote bestsellers about how the left in the West went to hell when it began to care more about the climate and political correctness than about workers' rights, when its main clientele, instead of workers, became the urban class of people who ride bicycles and drink cappuccino with soy with milk. The polls already see that party, which has not really started working yet, at about 4-5 percent of the vote, which is more than the disgraced Left. Some political scientists would swear that Sarah Wagenknecht has smelled the spirit of the times with this experiment in which she will insist on far-left economic and social policies, but be socially conservative.

The paradox of the fight against the AfD is that, for the most part, it is fought with the weapons of the right. Scholz was the vice-chancellor of Angela Merkel, a woman who will remain nicknamed the "refugee mother" because in 2015 she allegedly "opened the borders" for refugees who went through the Balkan route.

Today, Scholz and the rest of the ruling coalition collectively advocate a tougher refugee policy. This Thursday (January 18), the Bundestag should pass a law that facilitates deportations and extends deportation detention from ten to 28 days. Official Berlin is negotiating in style with the countries where migrants usually come from and making them tempting offers to take their citizens back again.

At the same time, a law should be adopted, after which it will be faster and easier to obtain German citizenship, as a rule, after five years of legal residence in the country. For the first time, dual citizenship will be allowed, so, for example, citizens of Serbia will not have to renounce Serbian citizenship in order to take German citizenship.

The message of those two laws is clear - fewer refugees, more labor. Experts calculate that Germany cannot maintain its prosperity without at least half a million immigrants a year, but those who will immediately roll up their sleeves.

WILL SCHOLZ BE A FAILED CHANCELLOR?

The question is whether Scholz in office will wait to see any of the fruits of the legislation he is now pushing. In Berlin, the possibility of early elections, a very rare occurrence in modern Germany, is being loudly mentioned. The last time this was seen was when Gerhard Schröder "shortened his mandate" in 2005, so he narrowly lost to Angela Merkel in early elections.

But, while Schröder could still hope to buy himself another four years in power by fleeing to new elections, the same can hardly be said for Scholz. His Social Democrats do not exceed 15 percent of support in polls, the Greens are at 13 percent, and the Liberals are struggling with the census.

As some experts in the Berlin bazaar say, the coalition is held together precisely by the fear of a fiasco in the elections. But the pressure in each of the parties is great, and the queue of those who would replace their leaders is long.

When the line is drawn, Germany has entered times it never hoped for. Instead of Angela Merkel, a woman who knew how to present crises as a boring and routine matter, the head of the country is "Sholcomat", a man with robotic features who has a hard time convincing citizens of anything.

In one comment, the public service ZDF recommends him to get his act together and tell the citizens nicely that there is a crisis, that the time of prosperity is over and that everyone must tighten their belts.

"Life is a matter of more risk than we Germans thought for many years. It seems that nothing in the world is safe anymore, dangers are no longer lurking but coming, so irritation and a mood of doom are spreading excessively. Only political populists profit from that," writes ZDF.

It is questionable whether Chancellor Scholz will take the advice. After the protests of Paor and with his current rating, he is not in a position to preach to the people that they should suffer for years until a better life comes.