The German government implements austerity policies despite the anger of farmers

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency quoting “Wirtschafts” Woche newspaper, despite the violent protests of farmers, the German federal government is implementing its savings plans for farmers. Now it is the turn of the Bundestag (German parliament) to vote on the austerity package for the 2024 budget. Among the most controversial is the reduction of subsidies for farmers. According to the information of the German news agency, the cabinet of the coalition government on Monday decided on the so-called formulation of the bill, which the coalition factions can now present to the Bundestag. On this basis, austerity measures are necessary because according to the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, the financial gap of about 30 billion euros in the main budget and in the climate and transformation fund must be filled.

For example, a higher ticket tax will now apply to air travel from May. This tax, depending on the final destination of the trip, should increase by almost a fifth, reaching 15.53 to 70.83 euros per passenger. The ticket tax affects all passengers departing from German airports. Airlines must pay additional fees. However, they can pass this on to passengers. The federal government expects to have an additional income of about 400 million euros this year due to the increase in the tax rate.

The cabinet also announced a highly controversial reduction in subsidies, despite protests from farmers. started the farmers. Based on this, the tax exemption for agricultural diesel will be gradually canceled. In particular, this represents a contribution to the reduction of climate-damaging subsidies, the draft reads. It withdrew the car tax exemption for farmers last week – possibly in response to violent protests by the industry. On Monday, thousands of farmers, bus and truck drivers demonstrated again in many parts of Germany. They closed the entrance to the highways and marched into the cities with tractor convoys. The police counted 566 tractors, trucks, cars, vans and trailers in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin alone. Citizens showed the green light. Based on this, job centers should be able to cut off citizenship benefits for up to two months for unemployed people, if the affected people persistently refuse to start working. The draft states: “The opportunity to start work must be real and immediate, and voluntary behavior must be avoided.” In addition, the bonus of the citizenship allowance of 75 euros per month will also be abolished. Federal Labor must also repay the federal government €1.5 billion at the end of 2024 and 2025 and €1.1 billion at the end of 2026 and 2027. The federal government will also reduce its subsidy for the statutory pension insurance by 600 million euros for the years 2024 to 2027.

In the meantime, three state premiers from the Social Democratic Party The Prime Minister of Germany has asked the traffic light coalition to cancel the reduction of planned subsidies in agriculture. The heads of the state governments Stefan Weil (Lower Saxony), Dietmar Wiedke (Brandenburg) and Manuela Schössig (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) reject the compromise the federal government recently reached on financial aid for farmers. This puts more pressure on German chancellor Olaf Schultz.

Farmers are already affected by other measures, such as higher CO2 prices, which lead to costs The fuel goes up, they are placed. “This is the real reason why farmers feel they are being treated worse than many other sectors of society,” Stephen Weil said.

On Monday, strikes and protests Farmers’ widespread protests against the government’s austerity policies and their coming to the streets with tractors caused chaos and disruption in the country.

In mid-November, the Federal Constitutional Court Annuls the re-allocation of 60 billion euros to the climate and transformation fund in the 2021 budget. This money was approved as a corona loan, but was then used for climate protection and economic modernization.

At the same time, the justices of this court decided that the government was not allowed to set aside emergency loans for later years. But the federal government did so in special funds – which now It has created additional gaps in the budget and has forced the government to save and adopt austerity policies.

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