today we are dealing with the disappointing climate package of the Federal Government, the long-term topic speed limit, a project for mosque communities and with Udo from the Allgäu.
The slightly different climate change
Oliver Berg / DPA
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In the Bundestag, the members of the Union and the SPD want to adopt the climate package of the government this morning. For hardly any project there had been more severe criticism, especially from leading climate researchers. One criticism was, among other things, far too low entry into CO2 pricing at ten euros per tonne. The promotion of alternative energy is at best half-hearted, if not counterproductive. And even after the climate package has been passed, there are more climate-damaging subsidies in Germany than climate-friendly ones.
At least the social climate has improved a little for the grand coalition since the birth of the climate package at the end of September. The storm of indignation has subsided. The theme is now a little less present, the big protests, led by "Fridays for Future", not quite as big as in September.
The urgency to act courageously has not changed.
- CO2 price, flight tax, commuter allowance: what really is to be kept from the climate package
Andreas Scheuer soon back on the palm?
Sebastian Gollnow / DPA
If you want to bring Traffic Minister Andreas Scheuer on the palm of your hand, you just have to drop the word combination "speed limit" and "highway". When an expert commission of the government brought such a speed limit into play at the beginning of the year, Scheuer said that this was "against all common sense." It was also because of his fierce resistance in the automotive industry sense that a speed limit was not part of the climate package.
But now a speed limit has just been decided in the Netherlands . And that gave Environment Minister Svenja Schulze a nice opportunity to annoy Scheuer again. The topic was not off the table, said Schulze. Unfortunately, it is not feasible in the coalition with the Union. "At least not right now." In the coming years, however, every year is checked whether the CO2 emissions in traffic sink. And that's why Schulze says with regard to the speed limit: "I do not think that's the last word spoken." On the palm could be something going on soon.
- Speed limit in the Netherlands: brakes for progress
Good mosques, bad mosques
Fabrizio Bensch / REUTERS
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer will be launching the "Mosques for Integration" project in Berlin today with a ceremony. The aim of the program is the "promotion of everyday coexistence" of mosque communities and their community environment. The municipalities in Germany are to be financially supported in the future in order to reduce their "dependencies", especially by foreign donors.
The background is also the conflict over the Turkish-Islamic association Ditib. The umbrella organization of numerous mosque communities in Germany draws their imams from Turkey, who also remain Turkish civil servants. The statute of the association guarantees the religious authority Diyanet in Ankara a say in personnel decisions and an influence on the communities.
The approach of the project may be right to reduce the influence of fundamentalist and politically motivated funders. Critics complain, however, that the budget of a few million a year is far too small to make a difference.
- New mosque in Erfurt: "Immediately there was hell"
Winners of the day ...
Karl-Josef Hildenbrand / DPA
... is "Udo", the ape. Udo lived 11.6 million years ago in today's Allgäu, and was probably on two legs. He is the oldest known monkey whose skeleton suggests an upright gait.
When Udo was living in the Allgäu at the time, pandas and elephants also lived there. It then took nearly twelve million years for his skeleton to be discovered. Only a few days, however, it took until the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder visited Udo's locality in Pforzen. "Such a million year old find teaches us humility before creation," Söder tweeted yesterday. And that really can only be said by Udo: Markus Söder Humility to have taught humility.
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I wish you a merry friday
Your Markus Feldenkirchen
