Bundestag election: Federal President Steinmeier warns of "mud battle"

Frank-Walter Steinmeier is worried about the federal election campaign.

Meanwhile, Peter Altmaier accuses the Greens of not reaching all parts of society.

Berlin - The mood in the run-up to the federal election in September is rough. Instead of substantive disputes about how the Federal Republic should be shaped in the coming years, the debate is lost in small-scale trench warfare. Instead of carefully checking the election programs to determine whether the respective party is armed for the most pressing human task, the climate crisis, it is about plagiarism allegations by the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock *, falling polls - and too rarely about concepts and visions.

In this minefield, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) spoke up - and warned of a "mud battle".

In the ZDF “summer interview” on Sunday, July 4, 2021, he called on the parties in the federal election campaign to “measure and reason”.

He went on to say, “I am concerned that it might turn into a mud fight.

At the present time, I believe that it is not yet the point at which the Federal President has to publicly warn.

Federal election 2021: Steinmeier warns of "mud battle" in the election campaign

In the interview, Steinmeier referred to the urgency of dealing with the consequences of pandemics, digitization and climate change. If you consider climate neutrality to be the top priority, it is not bypassing any area of ​​society. "It takes a lot of courage for those who will take on government responsibility after September," said the Federal President. The future government is facing enormous challenges. The art is to react to it without losing society along the way.

Losing parts of society is an accusation that Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) recently made the Greens *.

"Climate protection must not be a question of the big wallet and should not be carried out on the shoulders of low-wage earners," Altmaier told

.

With its resolute climate policy, the party would risk increasing social division and disadvantaging people in rural areas.

Criticism for it followed immediately.

The budgetary spokesman for the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Sven-Christian Kindler, described Altmaier's statement to the newspaper as “another cheap attempt to divert attention from the failure of the Union to protect the climate and depend on rural areas”.