Sylt punks wrote Schäuble an email, and his suggestion fell on deaf ears
Created: 09/18/2022, 06:11
Wolfgang Schäuble in September at the 35th federal party conference of the CDU in Hanover.
© IMAGO/Ulrich Stamm / Future Image
Residents of the punk protest camp on Sylt asked Wolfgang Schäuble for an interview in the summer.
The CDU politician accepted the invitation - and immediately tried to find a job.
Sylt – The CDU politician Wolfgang Schäuble actually only wanted to vacation on Sylt in the summer.
But a man wrote him by e-mail that he was in the camp in front of the town hall in Westerland and would like to have a conversation with the politician.
According to a report in the
Tagesspiegel
on Friday, Schäuble accepted the invitation without further ado and even tried to find jobs for the residents of the punk protest camp.
That's what the conversation between the camp residents and the CDU politician was about
The introduction of the nine-euro ticket in Germany in the summer also prompted numerous punks to travel to Sylt.
Many stayed for weeks on the "island of the rich" and camped there in front of the town hall in Westerland.
Wolfgang Schäuble also came to Sylt in the summer to go on vacation.
The campers found out and wrote the politician an e-mail.
"They wanted to know if I was ready to have a conversation with them," said Schäuble, who turns 80 on Sunday, in an interview with the
Tagesspiegel
.
The e-mail contained the sender's telephone number, which the CDU politician called without further ado.
"He hadn't expected that," said Schäuble.
The residents of the punk protest camp had set up a table for the politician - with coffee, milk, water and apple juice.
A picture of the meeting by the
Sylter Rundschau
shows Schäuble in a pink polo shirt and a baseball cap on his head speaking into a microphone.
Next to it, two punks are sitting on chairs, one of them is holding notes.
"We then had a heated debate for an hour and a half," reported the former Federal Minister of the meeting.
It was about the "gentrification of cities and national holiday destinations like Sylt," said a district spokeswoman for the
Hamburger Abendblatt
.
The main discussion was that Sylt does not only belong to the rich, said former Finance Minister Schäuble, describing the content of the debate.
money problems?
CDU politician Schäuble tried to find punks on Sylt jobs
A group of punks strolling through the pedestrian zone of Westerland on Sylt in June.
© picture alliance/dpa |
Axel Heimken
The conversation between Schäuble and the punks also included the tourist tax levied on Sylt.
According to the city, this enables a "free range of concerts, sporting events, lectures and children's programs." But the campers apparently did not want to pay this tax, said Schäuble.
"I didn't agree with them there," reported the longest-serving member of parliament in the history of the Federal Republic.
"I told them that if they had money problems, I might be able to find you a temporary job." However, the response to the offer was low.
The reasons for this were initially not clear from the report.
The protest camp on Sylt served as a gathering point for rallies and as a permanent residence.
Since political demands were being made with the camp at the Westerland town hall, the district of North Friesland initially recognized it as an assembly that was protected by freedom of assembly, despite complaints, for about a month.
However, the district recently rejected an extension beyond August 31, citing a changed balance of interests and the need to protect the rights of residents.
The main arguments were poor sanitary conditions around the camp and permanent noise pollution.
The last remaining residents of the punk protest camp peacefully cleared the camp last Wednesday.
(AFP/dpa/bme)
.