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Inflation and energy crisis: Merz accuses Scholz of a lack of will to cooperate

2022-08-11T09:50:50.474Z


CDU leader Merz taunts the SPD: In times of rising prices, the Chancellor's party sometimes deals with his Union "aggressively". It is different with the coalition partners of the Social Democrats.


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Friedrich Merz and Olaf Scholz (in January in the Bundestag): "Chancellor with 18 percent in the polls"

Photo: Stefanie Loos / AFP

Inflation and an impending crisis are burdening the citizens.

The CDU chairman Friedrich Merz has accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of a lack of willingness to cooperate in this situation.

"We see a strikingly bad, sometimes aggressively negative behavior of the SPD towards us at all levels," said Merz, who is also chairman of the Union faction in the Bundestag, in an interview with the dpa news agency.

"We regret that and could have imagined it differently."

Scholz himself has not accepted the offer of cooperation on important projects "since the beginning of May," criticized Merz.

"I'm not complaining about it, I'm just stating it." It was "the decision of the SPD and its leadership to behave towards the Union as they are currently doing."

Merz: FDP and Greens deal better with the Union

The SPD traffic light partners FDP and Greens, on the other hand, actively seek communication with the Union on several levels - "and of course we actively respond," added the head of the largest opposition faction in Parliament.

It is striking that the Greens and FDP practice a completely different approach than the SPD.

He could not conclusively assess why that was, said Merz.

"But of course the SPD has been in a very precarious situation since the lost state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia and with the poor poll numbers in the federal government." Basically, the SPD is back in the polls where they were last year have stood this time.

»She makes the chancellor with 18 percent in the polls.

It has never happened in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany that the Chancellor's party is below 20 percent," said Merz.

"I can understand that this leads to a certain nervousness in the ranks of the SPD."

Merz particularly criticized the relationship with Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) as "very complicated, very bulky and not very cooperative".

This is "an expression of their own insecurity, their own ignorance of detailed questions".

Lambrecht therefore avoids any debate if possible and reads prepared speaking notes.

“It's the result of this miscast.

She has not arrived in this office and objectively completely overwhelmed.« Merz spoke of typical behavior »of someone who is not sure of himself«.

The "shoes of a defense minister" are "too big" for her.

Klingbeil warns the coalition to end the "quarrels"

Tensions have recently increased in the traffic light coalition.

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has therefore called on the partners to be willing to compromise.

"What I expect from all ministers is that we stop arguing with each other," he told the newspapers of the Bayern media group on Thursday.

He could only "urgently appeal to everyone" to concentrate on the current challenges, "because that's what the traffic light is measured against".

One of the controversial issues is the tax plans of Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) - the debate in the coalition continued on Thursday.

Politicians from the SPD and the Greens called for relief that would be more tailored to low-income earners and brought up a one-off state payment for this.

Lindner wants to dampen the consequences of inflation across the board with a law against the so-called cold progression in income tax.

Klingbeil said he was ready to talk: Linder had sent the "right signal" with his plans that the federal government would "take a lot of money" "to get people through this crisis," said Klingbeil on Thursday in the ZDF "Morgenmagazin". «.

Now it is a matter of quickly putting together an overall package as a federal government.

"There are other things that go with it," said the SPD leader.

As examples, he named the citizens' allowance, which is intended to replace the Hartz IV system, the housing benefit reform and an excess profit tax for companies that make "big profits" in the energy crisis without their own work and without new innovations.

When asked whether the common ground of the traffic light coalition had already been exhausted, Klingbeil replied to the Bayern media group: »No.

In the coalition agreement, we named a lot of the need for reform in Germany.

Now we also have to deal with crises that no one could foresee.«

asa/dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-08-11

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