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Armin Laschet at Anne Will: From the Corona crisis to climate policy

2021-05-12T11:47:12.782Z


Armin Laschet takes a seat in the hot seat at »Anne Will« and looks anything but aggressive. For Hans-Georg Maaßen, he even goes on the defensive


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Hostess Anne Will

Photo: ARD Das Erste / obs

Armin Laschet has a new favorite word: ambitious.

If we counted correctly, he used it six times on this show, in a wide variety of contexts.

Bringing Germany back into shape after the pandemic?

Ambitious.

Achieve Paris' climate goals?

Ambitious.

Get the modern hybrid voters excited about the last remaining People's Party?

Ambitious.

Laschet himself did not come to "Anne Will" without ambition either.

Since he became candidate for chancellor of the Union, every visit to a talk show has been like taking a seat in the hot seat for him.

He is hardly asked a question that cannot be foreseen.

And yet he often gives the impression that he wants to deal with this or that accusation in peace - without losing his composure.

Ursula Münch sums up why Annalena Baerbock of the Greens and Olaf Scholz are treated differently in public, somehow more tender, more compassionate (SPD).

The political scientist wants to know why things that Laschet would like to tackle have not been tackled in the past 15 years.

Laschet: "It's not about differences, it's about me!"

Now Laschet was not Chancellor and has only ruled North Rhine-Westphalia since 2017. He doesn't want to be lured into the trap of distancing himself from Angela Merkel. During her term of office, Merkel had "had to deal with four major world crises," because one would not think "about modernizing one's own administration every day." Incidentally, he would like to set up a digital ministry himself.

In fact, almost all of the problems that Laschet set out to solve came up under a CDU-led federal government. Europe, financially and politically. Dependencies on China. Justice in society through »social education advancement for everyone«, including the 25 percent with a migration background. Pandemic consequences. Modernization of the country, digitally and with faster planning and approval processes. All that and much more if he were Chancellor of Germany!

Will listens to that and "no differences to the Greens or the SPD".

Laschet: "It's not about differences, it's about me!" Like a human resources manager, Anne Will asked an aspirant: "Why are you particularly suitable as Federal Chancellor?" but everything also applies to Markus Söder «.

Laschet is left with the circular conclusion: "Markus Söder is not a candidate".

Gradual dismantling of the firewall

Söder - or Friedrich Merz, whom he has already brought into his team - would have been the preferred candidate for the clearly conservative CDU in the east.

Now she has Laschet and anger in her stomach that has led to the right-winger Hans-Georg Maaßen being set up as a candidate for the Bundestag in southern Thuringia.

Martin Machowecz from “Die Zeit” points out that in the past it was not easy for a weak party headquarters to dissuade the toying regional associations in the east of a possible alliance with the AfD.

"The word is that there will be no coalition with the AfD," says Laschet, and people like to believe him.

Alone, can he really stop the successive dismantling of the firewall to the far right?

Luisa Neubauer, climate activist and member of the Greens, is hot on this topic.

Through his silence on Maassen, Laschet legitimized "racist, anti-Semitic, identitarian and incidentally also science-denying content".

Torn between climate policy and the fight against the right

"He's not an anti-Semite," says Laschet, and asks for evidence, because "there is nothing where I become as rigid as with anti-Semitism".

Neubauer remains guilty of solid evidence, the allegation of all allegations is currently unchecked in the room.

Laschet explains somewhat lamely that as federal chairman he has nothing to say about it: "A green candidate for chancellor does not determine who is mayor in Thuringia".

It is Machowecz who jumps up to the beleaguered with the remark that the CDU has the task of “establishing a reconciliation” and that “this is not only possible with woken or hip city dwellers.” If he fails to do this, the candidate “will inevitably be ground up «Between climate policy and the fight against the right.

Luisa Neubauer immediately demonstrates how it feels.

"I want to make Germany a climate-neutral industrial country," explains Laschet in a conciliatory manner.

Neubauer: "Let's just take a look at what has happened in North Rhine-Westphalia in the last five months", more opencast mining, more villages dug out, no more areas for wind power.

Laschet: "That was a whole host of topics!" Neubauer: "Those were the last five months of your policy".

Laschet has less than four months until the federal election.

That is going to be ambitious.

Source: spiegel

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