The Greens are not going on the offensive.
Your latest climate plan has met with fierce criticism.
Worse still: instead of debates on content, there is again a hail of ridicule.
Biesenthal / Berlin - The Bundestag election campaign remains difficult for the Greens: unlike Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock, Armin Laschet's plagiarism problems meet with little public interest - and even seemingly problem-free content-related offensives boomerang.
So again now.
On Tuesday, Baerbock and co-boss Robert Habeck presented their immediate climate program in front of the literally primeval green backdrop of a nature reserve near the capital.
There wasn't much that was new, but the timing seemed appropriate after the debates about the flood disaster in Germany.
But not only that the most striking point is panned out by the competition - there was subsequently great interest, especially in a verbal misstep by Baerbock.
And of Habeck's gestures while his colleague was speaking.
Greens: Laschet and Scholz against ministry plan - Gabriel tears up proposal
The criticism of the content ignites the Greens plans for a climate ministry. Specifically: The department's intended veto right against climate-damaging plans from other companies. "Climate protection is the job of the chancellor," said Laschet on Wednesday in the
Rheinische Post
. "Smart climate protection is a cross-cutting task and not a veto job of a green minister," he added - possibly with a view to an approaching black-green coalition. SPD candidate Olaf Scholz also tweeted that he wanted to make climate protection a top priority - and a matter for “the Chancellery”.
Criticism of the content of the veto idea is likely to be more painful.
"The idea can only come up to someone who either has no idea about politics or who wants to stupefy the people with nice-sounding slogans in the election campaign," said ex-SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel also of the
Rheinische Post
.
Every department already has a right of veto on cabinet drafts - including the Ministry of the Environment.
As environment minister, he himself made good use of the opportunity, for example to thwart Angela Merkel's nuclear power plans, revealed the former vice chancellor.
However, the laws and rules of procedure provide actual veto rights for some ministries - but not for all.
A right of objection for the environment minister would rather be owed to the informal will to bring about a cabinet peace.
Green climate plan: Merz reprimands "state authority thinking" - with idiosyncratic justification
Ironically, Laschet helper Friedrich Merz saw the situation differently.
He also criticized the Greens' plans.
But from the opposite direction: The proposal shows “the state-authoritarian thinking of the Greens”, he railed in a tweet: “We pass laws in Parliament.
It is incompatible with the constitutional order for a ministry to veto Bundestag decisions. "
The Greens are unlikely to have had a veto against laws that have already been passed - in any case, the Bundestag hardly ever sees an amendment that has not been initiated or at least approved by the government.
“Malicious or completely inexperienced!” Called the Green MP Konstantin von Notz Merz's reply.
Habeck, however, defended the move - and referred to common practice in financing issues.
“What is common practice in budget policy also works in climate policy.
Both are about a scarce commodity and intergenerational equity, ”said Habeck of the
Rheinische Post
.
Far too often, compliance with the Paris Climate Agreement has been postponed in day-to-day government.
In the direction of the Union, he added: "Rejecting proposals, but not making any yourself, that is not possible."
Baerbock and Greens already in a wave of ridicule: Chancellor candidate thinks she is in the wrong place
Apart from this debate, a moderate wave of ridicule swept over the Greens in the social networks.
One occasion was an unpleasant mistake in content Baerbocks: "The forest here in the Oderbruch is different from the forest in the south of the country," she explained to the journalists.
The blemish: The appointment took place near Biesenthal north of Berlin, in the landscape of Barnim - and by no means in the Oderbruch.
The mistake is particularly painful because Annalena Baerbock is running for a direct mandate in Brandenburg.
So in every federal state where Oderbruch and Barnim are located.
Habeck obviously wants to sink into the ground.
#Baerbock unbearable!
#Habeck pic.twitter.com/pV25gORKYP
- aoxomoxoa (@ aoxomoxoa6) August 4, 2021
Other observers took a very critical look at the sequence recorded in the video from a different point of view. "If I have ever seen physical discomfort, isolation and annoyance as an expression of body language, it was with Habeck in this short scene," judged one user. "Habeck obviously wants to sink into the ground," another. Even CDU great Ruprecht Polenz attested the Greens “to suffer visibly”. In any case, a few weeks before the general election, the debates on the content are apparently hardly going to get through. (
fn
)
