Essay by Eric Worrall
In the face of protests and a rising electoral threat from right wing AFD candidates, the German Government has grudgingly offered concessions to victims of their green policies.
05 Jan 2024, 11:43
Julian WettengelFarmer protests continue in Germany after govt backtracks on cuts for climate-damaging subsidies
Agriculture Cost & Prices Society Government
Following a noisy backlash from farmers, the German government coalition has decided to backtrack on planned cuts to climate-damaging subsidies in the agriculture sector. However, continued protests show that the move might be insufficient to calm the sector. To fill a 2024 budget gap following a constitutional court ruling on key climate action funding, the government in December said it would roll back tax breaks for agriculture vehicles, which led to a major protest in the capital Berlin. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), economy minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and finance minister Christian Lindner (FDP) now agreed to cancel some of these measures and delay others. Agricultural vehicle tax breaks will not be slashed while diesel tax breaks for farmers will be abolished only gradually, starting this year.
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However, farmers made clear they think the changes are insufficient. “This can only be a first step,” said Joachim Rukwied, head of the farmers association DBV, and added that a week of protests (from 8 January) would go ahead as planned. …
The concessions could best be described as inadequate – a slight reduction of red tape, and a very temporary deferment of the abolition of tax relief for agricultural fuel users.
Agreement between Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Vice Chancellor Dr. Robert Habeck and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner on changes to the preparation of the 2024 budget
The spokesman for the Federal Government, Steffen Hebestreit, says:
- Press release 3
- Thursday, 4. January 2024
- Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (BPA)
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Vice Chancellor Dr. Robert Habeck and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner today agreed on changes to the agreement of the 15th. December 2023 on the preparation of the federal budget 2024. The agreement of the 15th December 2023, the Federal Cabinet was informed on the 20th. December 2023.
With these changes, the Federal Government reacts in particular to findings that have emerged in the context of the development of the concrete formulation aids for the German Bundestag.
Compared to the agreement of the 15th. December 2023, the following changes were specifically agreed:
The abolition of the preferential tax for motor vehicle tax for forestry and agriculture is waived. This in particular to avoid the sometimes considerable bureaucratic burden for the companies concerned.
The abolition of the tax advantage for agricultural diesel is not carried out in one step. Instead, there is a gradual reduction in the benefit in order to give the affected companies more time to adjust. In 2024, the relief rate will be reduced by 40%. In the years 2025 and 2026, a further reduction of 30% will take place, so that there will no longer be a subsidy for quantities consumed in 2026. The return remuneration of the quantities consumed in 2023 in 2024 is unchanged.
The transfer of the transfers to the plastic levy to the EU, the costs of which have so far been borne by the general public of taxpayers and which are to be allocated to the polluters in the future – as agreed in the coalition agreement – will be transferred to the polluters from the 1st. January 2025 implemented. This is necessary to gain more time to develop an efficient and as bureaucratic as possible solution.
As a contribution to meeting the additional investment needs at Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Bahn is to be strengthened in the period up to 2029 with equity increases of a total of 20 billion euros. In the years 2024 and 2025, equity increases of 5.5 billion euros are planned – investment revenues are also to be used for this purpose (specific scope, design, period and companies have yet to be determined).
The changes will lead to lower relief in the federal budget in 2024 in the order of around 2.5 billion euros. These can be compensated by determining a broader use of the revenue from the wind-offshore tender in 2023 in the Wind-on-Sea Act also for the general federal budget (780 million euros), by an additional savings contribution from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the amount of 100 million euros and by leeway resulting from updated economic and budgetary data in the federal budget.
The Federal Ministry of Finance, together with the other federal ministries concerned, is currently in the process of finalizing the formulation aids for the German Bundestag for the measures already agreed in December and the changes that now result. According to the plans of the coalition factions, the Budget Committee of the Bundestag is then to discuss the federal budget 2024 in another adjustment meeting in mid-January. In the second week of the Bundestag at the end of January 2024, the federal budget 2024 is to be decided according to these plans. The Federal Council could in its meeting on the 2nd February 2024 then complete the legislative procedure. Until then, the provisional budget management applies.
Source (translated from German): https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/suche/verstaendigung-zwischen-bundeskanzler-olaf-scholz-vizekanzler-dr-robert-habeck-und-bundesfinanzminister-christian-lindner-auf-aenderungen-zur-aufstellung-des-haushalts-2024-2251434
The following is a video of farmers trying to confront the green party Vice Chancellor of Germany Robert Habeck at a ferry port;
This is a difficult time for the German left. The utter failure of green energy in Germany along with social tensions caused by uncontrolled mass immigration has made the German left vulnerable at the ballot box. But instead of fixing the problems they themselves caused, the ruling German left wing coalition is claiming their opponents are a threat to democracy, and is pushing to ban their climate skeptic and anti-mass immigration opponents from running for election.
Germany Is Thinking of Simply Banning the Far Right
As radical conservatives continue to rise, Germany’s mainstream is getting desperate for a fix.
DECEMBER 13, 2023, 9:25 AM
Last week, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency took the dramatic step of classifying the Saxony state branch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a threat to democracy—a potential first step towards banning it outright as unconstitutional. “There can be no doubt about the extreme right orientation of this party,” declared Dirk-Martin Christian, president of Saxony’s State Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Although Germany has, in the past, exercised constitutional powers in the name of domestic security to rein in hardcore far-right (and radical leftist) forces, the objects of censure were marginal neo-Nazi parties and associations that had no chance of coming to power—even at the municipal level or in coalition governments. The AfD is a different story. Opinion polls show the AfD as the strongest party by far today in eastern Germany; riding a powerful wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, it has also notched record tallies in western German state elections and is poised to win the most votes next year in the country’s eastern half. It could conceivably wield executive power, should conservatives—such as the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) or the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP)—consider it in their interests to treat the far-right party as a legitimate expression of popular will.
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Read more: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/13/germany-afd-far-right-ban-populism/
Isn’t it awful that beleaguered mainstream politicians in Germany are attempting to outlaw and demonise their political opponents, instead of competing on policy and letting the people vote for the candidates of their choice? Just as well nothing like that could ever happen in the United States.
via Watts Up With That?
January 7, 2024 at 12:50AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 