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.
…
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. …
Read more: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/farmer-protests-continue-germany-after-govt-backtracks-cuts-climate-damaging-subsidies
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.
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
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.
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.
…
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.
This and similar are doing the rounds on F’book in the UK and EU
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1912485529168400
Democratic Republics had a nice run. The watermelons know they’ll never be stronger than they are today, so it’s time for Lenin’s playbook.
Yes, it sounds like Germany’s leftwing is doing the same thing the American leftwing is doing: Weaponizing the government and law enforcement against their political opponents. Dictatorship is just around the corner if this kind of activity isn’t stopped.
In the United States, electing Trump would go a long ways toward stopping this kind of activity. It may be the only way.
As far as I can see, there is no one savior for Germany. Maybe Trump can weigh in on the German Left and their weaponization of the federal government when he is president again. Trump will have a unique perspective on the matter.
Trump may switch back to being a Democrat at any time if he thinks it will benefit him.
And wouldn’t it be a hoot to watch the Dems start loving him again?
That will never happen, either.
Never happen.
The AfD, Alternative for Deutschland, conservative party opposes the green agenda including wanting to restart Berman’s nukes. They’ve nearly doubled their popularity in the past several years. Germany’s Energie Wendie nightmare will end if the AfD continues it’s growth rate through the next national elections.
Did I read it right? The abolition of a tax is considered to be a subsidy?
The left claims tax breaks are subsidies, but this rule only applies to fossil fuel. Somehow they never want to receive their renewable energy subsidies as tax breaks.
Yes.. it’s a Leftie thing: all property belongs to the State. So when the Comrades running the State generously allow you to keep some of what you earned, it’s actually a transfer of money from the State to you – a gift in fact.
“Yes.. it’s a Leftie thing: all property belongs to the State.”
Yes, that’s the way the radical Left looks at it. The radical Left feels like they are doing you a favor if they don’t take *all* your money.
Trouble is, those at the top on the left, own their property, and yours. And of course, dip into your pocket to relieve you of the burden of having to spend money.
Just trying to think when the sitting governing party in Germany last banned active opposition?
You have to go back to the 1930s. The result of that abandonment of democratic opposition didn’t turn out too well as I recall….
Apparently the law has been used before, but never against a group as significant as AFD. Given AFD’s popularity, banning them would be as destabilising for German politics as banning Trump from running for President would be for US politics.
Convincing a large portion of the public that the Republic is dead will have real consequences, if it goes forward.
I think if they ban AFD they are going to make everything much worse for all political groups in Germany.
Who gets to ban who?
The radical Left feels itself losing political power in many areas of the world, and they are trying to figure out how they can stay in power, and it looks like they are willing to trash their founding documents to do it.
The end, justifies the means, for the radical Left. Which means, look out, if the Left thinks they are in trouble. They will be lashing out all over the place.
The German Communsit Party (KPD) has been banned and a follow-up of the NASDAP
It wouldn’t surprise me if Germany split into East and West (GDR -DDR), if the AFD get banned.
Consider who ran German Government in the 1930s and war years – I don’t mean the leading political class who let their doom, but the petty officials, bureaucrats minor politicians.
They mostly survived the war and stayed in post afterwards to run the Government as there was nobody else. So although the top level changed after 1945 and democracy broke out, it was in essence the same crew running things but with a change of plumage. (Similar to what happened in Eastern Countries after the USSR collapsed, yesterday’s Communist Party bureaucrats became today’s Democratic Party bureaucrats still running the place.)
The same was true of Italy, Vichy France. Post-war these ‘former’ National Socialists and Fascists selected and trained their heirs and successors and Lo! made the Eurooean Coal & Steel Community, begat the European Economic Community, begat the European Union aka the Fourth Reich.
Fascism/National Socialism defeated 1945, Socialism/Communism defeated 1990?
No. Just a rebrand a business as usual. It is clear to see.
Lest we forget: It caused the death of millions.
Hermann Goering explained the reasoning:
Nuremberg Trials Day 84:
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The principles of the authoritarian government which you set up required, as I understand you, that there be tolerated no opposition by political parties which might defeat or obstruct the policy of the Nazi Party?
GOERING: You have understood this quite correctly. By that time we had lived long enough with opposition and we had had enough of it. Through opposition we had been completely ruined. It was now time to have done with it and to start building up.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: After you came to power, you regarded it necessary, in order to maintain power, to suppress all opposition parties?
GOERING: We found it necessary not to permit any more opposition, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And you also held it necessary that you should suppress all individual opposition lest it should develop into a party of opposition?
GOERING: Insofar as opposition seriously hampered our work of building up, this opposition of individual persons was, of course, not tolerated. Insofar as it was simply a matter of harmless talk, it was considered to be of no consequence.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, in order to make sure that you suppressed the parties, and individuals also, you found it necessary to have a secret political police to detect opposition?
GOERING: I have already stated that I considered that necessary, just as previously the political police had existed, but on a firmer basis and larger scale.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And upon coming to power you also considered it immediately necessary to establish concentration camps to take care of your incorrigible opponents? …
now who can argue with that?
Good posting of a distressing story about Germany. Two things stand out, somewhat indirectly: people pay taxes and subsidies, the government only moves money around, and, given a choice between farmers that produce food and Stop Oil, that causes chaos and cost, err on the side of the farmers that produce food. We will have to wait a bit to see how the theme plays out in this years elections in the USA, could be Germany 2, or not.
“…the government only moves money around…”
___________________________________
Last time I checked government prints money.
What’s distressing about the story? A portion of the German population can’t and won’t wait for an election to address their grievances. Generally regarded as a passive flock of obedient subjects, some of the Germans, in particular the Easterners with an experience of even more oppressive tyranny than their western neighbors, are unwilling to see their economic and social gains extinguished by the actions of pseudo-democracy. Good luck to them.
“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.” Replacing the words “German” and “Germany” in the above with “USA” will make it just as truthful in the very near future.
I’m confused. Yesterday you said that climate alarmism in Germany had nothing to do with the Left, but today it apparently does?
“”The concessions could best be described as inadequate – a slight reduction of red tape, and a very temporary deferment… “”
Sounds just like Sunak…
Yep, putting the ICE car ban back 5 years was the headline but the hidden detail was the fines for selling ICE cars stays in place which means you will not be able to afford them.
Our gouvernement is called “the travel light coalition”
red=SPD
yel=FDP
gre=Greens
And there willl be the farmer protests:
Banning the AfD is the stupidest political idea in a long time. If they were going to ban it the time was several years back. Ban it now, and they are asking for something much worse to come up.
AfD is a serious warning for Germany, and it needs dealing with, but the answer is to drop the crazed energy policies and act on the social issues that are leading to its popularity. Its to listen to the underlying concerns. Which much nastier groups than the AfD are eager to exploit, and if its banned, they will find a way.
Hmm, they are not going to change tack now. They’ve well and truly mastered what Goebbels taught them. And they have also learned Orwellian newspeak, with a twist of their own.
The gut instinct to cancel and ban beloved of the woke post-modern left(?) by any means possible – eg legal, moral etc – is playing out with Trump in the US. It isn’t so much Trump himself, but the fact that people might vote for him. The people cannot be trusted to vote the right way.
The AfD is reportedly surging in the polls. It’s too late to ban it without major repercussions..
So they are going Democrat Party and Venezuela route, just ban from life any who oppose their anti-human crapspew. Got it.
“climate-damaging subsidies in the agriculture sector”
WTF? I can see offering some help to farmers who’ve had bad luck with weather- but why call it climate-damaging? So they can blame it all on those evil ff users instead of “mother nature” who they all worship?
Rationality is indeed to the far right of these lefties.
“This is necessary to gain more time to develop an efficient and as bureaucratic as possible solution.”
What an oxymoronic statement !!!
This is what a “tipping point” really looks like.
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”
— An ancient proverb believed to date back to Roman times.
Looks like climate change is producing another insurrection to me. The sooner Germany starts burning witches again to stop this, the better.
Last paragraph – well said Eric.
Like in the movie Groundhog Day, it’s 1931 all over again!
Number one giving the government more money is not the answer.
Number two the government needs to stop propping up failing businesses.
Number three if farmers and foresters need a tax break that tells you the tax is too high. Lower taxes for everyone the country and the economy will be better for it.
Number three stop subsidizing wind and solar they are not fit for the grid.
Consumers are no longer being conned by carbon taxes. They realize they are nothing more than gimmicks to generate revenue, and if they don’t succeed in lowering emissions and persuading buyers from opting for EVs, they still have to be retained according to the government and the environmentalists. Otherwise, climate change could become even worse, supposedly.
My favorite is when the Left came up with cap-and-trade and called it a free market solution.
OT Story Tip: House plants are bad for the environment according to WaPo: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/wapo-article-suggesting-houseplant-ownership-could-be-bad-for-planet-takes-heat-stop-the-doom-mongering/ar-AA1mAzir
Sorry, could not find the actual WaPo article, if there’s a link in that, I missed it.
“CO2 Tax Farmers Protests Rock Germany”
When I saw the headline I was confused. i thought that tax farming had disappeared after the French Revolution.
Tax farming was the practice of having a government sell the right to collect a tax to a private person. The French Government of the Ancien Regime of Louis XIV through Louis XVI in the 1600s and 1700s famously sold the right to collect the Gabelle, the salt tax, to private contractors. The tax farmers paid a fixed amount for the right to collect the tax and kept everything they collected. Their incentive was to squeeze as hard as they could. During the Revolution the tax farmers were sent to Monsieur Guillotine.
The most famous tax farmer so shortened was Antoine Lavoisier who refuted the phlogiston theory of combustion and identified the elements oxygen and hydrogen. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern chemistry. But, that cut no ice with the Revolution.