As of: February 7, 2024, 7:13 p.m
By: Lisa Mahnke
Comments
Press
Split
Lindner's controversial agricultural speech is causing his popularity to decline.
However, the FDP member puts the blame for the traffic light policy on Söder.
This earns him criticism.
Lübeck - Fear of a fall: Despite a failed speech to angry farmers, Christian Lindner continues to vie for the farmers' favor.
At a citizens' forum in Lübeck, the FDP leader once again appealed for understanding for the traffic light coalition's budget policy - and partly blamed the CSU for the austerity measures.
But this didn't really appease the farmers.
When he arrived in the Hanseatic city that morning, Lindner was greeted with a loud farmers' protest.
Later at the event there was heavy criticism of the Liberal leader.
A farmer took up Lindner's sentence at the FDP's Epiphany meeting, according to which the farmers had "lost their way!"
“We haven’t lost our way,” said the chairman of the Schleswig-Holstein Farmers’ Association, Heinrich Mougin.
“You, and the Coalition of Awakening, have left us standing.”
Lindner's rescue at the last second: Söder's fault for the traffic light coalition
But Lindner didn't let the criticism stand.
The FDP leader explained that his statement was only about peaceful demonstrations and not about agricultural interests per se.
“We saw the gallows!” countered Lindner, referring to installations on which Habeck or the traffic light were symbolically hanged on the edge of the farmers’ protests.
Despite everything, Lindner stuck to his position against the subsidy of agricultural diesel.
The citizens' forum in Lübeck was part of a citizens' dialogue tour on the topic of "Finance Now".
© IMAGO/photothek/Janine Schmitz
However, Lindner was unable to shed a better light on the traffic light coalition during the citizens' forum.
Most recently, the FDP leader tried to at least save his own faction: “You can say quite openly that this traffic light coalition exists because of Markus Söder,” explained Lindner.
CSU boss Söder is responsible because he canceled his support for Armin Laschet (CDU) in the 2021 federal election.
Meanwhile, Lindner was the last fighter for Laschet as Chancellor.
Accordingly, it is not the FDP that can be held responsible among the governing parties.
Considering the circumstances, says Lindner, the traffic light achieved a lot.
Markus Söder has repeatedly taunted the traffic light government in recent months; according to Söder, the budget dispute in particular would deprive it of legitimacy.
“One of you” without experience: According to Söder, the FDP in the traffic light government is also distant from the citizens
Perhaps it was a return carriage.
Bavaria's Prime Minister had previously answered questions from farmers in the “jetz red i” format from
Bayerischer Rundfunk
.
He laughed at Lindner's appearance at the Berlin demonstration and, against the background of the traffic light's agricultural policy, also shot at the FDP member: "Stand there and tell them: I've seen a stable once in my life and that's why I'm one of you.
You have to imagine this!"
My news
Heavy fighting against Wagner mercenaries in Africa: Video shows interrogation by Ukrainian special forcesread
Putin mocks Germany and its auto industry: “We should help them” read
Is this Putin's plan?
Report outlines possible Russian attack on NATO members
Ukraine is threatened with a serious loss of Avdiivka: Kiev is therefore taking a tank risk reading
1 hour ago
CDU boss oracles about black-green: Friedrich Merz's new foray into faux pas
Aiwanger scoffs at Söder’s “tips” – it’s hard to read in the Bayern coalition
From the CSU member's point of view, the FDP cannot escape the criticism of the people's alienation, which has often hit the traffic light coalition.
“Or I’m a hunter.
You imagine Lindner driving to the station in the Porsche: 'I'm a hunter.'
I mean, that’s a mockery of the people,” added the Bavarian Prime Minister when he was finished laughing.
“I'm a hunter, I'll be ready once I've mucked out the horse stable.
That's why I know what kind of work it is to do it all day, every day," Lindner said in his controversial speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
There, as well as at the demonstration in front of the Lübeck Citizens' Dialogue, there were boos, and the farmers are still dissatisfied.
There was also criticism from the BBV president and the left-wing leader Wissler.
“Take advantage of the opportunity”: Lindner wants to turn the farmers’ protest towards de-bureaucratization
After Lindner explained at the Berlin rally on behalf of the traffic light coalition why agricultural diesel was being gradually cut despite everything, the FDP leader suddenly showed solidarity in the citizen dialogue and promoted the views of the FDP: “Take advantage of the opportunity.
What is actually burdening you cannot be the agricultural diesel.” He called on farmers to do something sustainably for the agricultural economy instead of focusing on agricultural diesel.
In the spirit of the FDP program, the reduction of the bureaucratic burden on agriculture is particularly effective.
The Borchert Plan and the Future Commission for Agriculture (ZKL), which are about an ecological transformation of agriculture, were also topics of the citizen dialogue.
“Markus Söder said two weeks ago that it was a meat tax,” explained the FDP member and then argued with the cost of living, which such a tax would make even more expensive.
“Because we have to strive for the common good,” this cannot be implemented at the moment, said Lindner.
(lismah)