Thousands tractors People from all over Germany crashed this Monday BerlinIn the first major protest against cuts approved by the coalition Olaf Scholz to solve your problem budget crisis. Protests in rural Germany intensified removal of agricultural diesel subsidiesThis is one of the points that the trio agreed on in the face of the 60 billion euro blockade imposed by the Constitutional Court (TC).
Tractor drivers marched in different columns in the city center, including the government district and the surroundings of the symbolic monument. Brandenburg Gate. They carried banners with slogans such as “We are fed up”, “Don’t play with our existence”, “You are massacring the countryside”.
According to the experts, the measure taken by the tripartite group consisting of social democrats, greens and liberals attacks the existence of large and small farms. Minister of Agriculture and environmentalist Cem Özdemir, in his speech before the concentration of tractor drivers, stated that he was against the removal of these subsidies.
The minister faced loud boos but also some applause for his bravery in coming forward to show his face, at least in front of the affected union. “I neither agree nor have ever agreed with these cuts. The government knows my opinion and I will work for it.
Constitutional Judiciary
After four weeks of strong tensions, Scholz’s coalition announced last week that it had made an agreement to resolve the budget crisis that emerged with the decision of the Constitutional Court (TC) without creating new debt. The Chancellor warned some cuts might be necessary, but assured they would not affect major environmental projects and would be limited to “climate-harmful” subsidies.
The source of the problem is the decision of the Republic of Turkey, which declared unconstitutional the diversion of the fund, which was initially created to alleviate the effects of the epidemic, to other destinations. This operation violated policies debt brakeA tool that limits debt to 0.35% of GDP, except in exceptional circumstances such as a pandemic. The aim of the Scholz Government was to allocate a then unused loan of 60,000 million Euros to the Technology and Climate Renewal Fund, which the Republic of Turkey estimated violated this principle.
While the Social Democrats and the Greens aim to suspend or reform the debt ceiling, the liberal partners, the party of Finance Minister Christian Lindner, insist that the instrument is untouchable.
The austerity policy imposed by Lindner’s department, Reformulating 2024 budgetsIn addition to saving 17 billion euros, it approved an additional budget for 2023. Scholz assured that the debt brake will be respected next year, except for emergencies arising from the course of the war in Ukraine.
Along with diesel subsidies, subsidies for the purchase of electric cars aimed at promoting the ecological transformation of the vehicle fleet have also been abolished with immediate effect.
Green For now, they are the trio partners who will be most affected by the austerity line. The cuts mainly affect the Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection, led by Green Robert Habeck, who holds the rank of vice-rector in Scholz’s coalition. However, Habeck warned that what was agreed upon could not be revisited because consensus was so difficult to reach.