From Monday, farmers want to demonstrate again to receive subsidies. They have already achieved some of their demands. But the protest movement also includes groups that pursue completely different goals.
“Then we will be present everywhere on January 8th, in a way that the country has never experienced before,” said farmers’ association president Joachim Rukwied at a rally at the end of last year. Now January 8th is just around the corner and the country is actually experiencing situations that it has not experienced in a long time.
On Thursday evening, more than 100 demonstrators prevented a ferry from docking in Schlüttsiel, Schleswig-Holstein. Federal Economics Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) was on the ferry. Some demonstrators tried to break through a police blockade and get onto the ferry.
The approximately 30 police officers had to use pepper spray to prevent an escalation. Finally the ferry set off again with its passengers. At midday, people on The agitators come from the Identitarian Movement.
“Revival of a ethnic protest movement”
This is not the first time that right-wing groups have appeared at farmers’ protests. At a large demonstration in Stuttgart at the end of last year, a traffic light symbolically hung on a gallows. The black flag of the Landvolk farmers’ movement was also displayed on several tractors.
“This is a revival of a ethnic protest movement that previously had terrorist traits,” explains Axel Salheiser, scientific director of the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society in Jena. “Anyone who shows these symbols with the plowshare and the sword, anyone who places themselves in this tradition, symbolizes a form of reactionary resistance.”
Protests should not be “delegitimized” by the right
Salheiser is observing the protests and has noticed that ethnic-nationalist to right-wing extremist groups are trying to use the protests for their own benefit: “They are using this as a vehicle for their fantasies of overthrow,” says Salheiser. Right-wing extremist groups are aiming to stage a popular uprising against an alleged dictatorship in Berlin. “The calls on social media are more than clear.”
Logos of the “Heimat” party, the successor organization to the NPD, also appeared at the protests in Stuttgart. And what does that mean for the farmers’ upcoming protest week, which was initiated by the farmers’ association?
“As a farmers’ association, we distance ourselves unequivocally from radical positions and violence,” says Hans-Benno Wichert, vice president of the Baden-Württemberg State Farmers’ Association. “There is nothing to discuss there. There is no room or space for this at our events. If such posters appear, they must be removed.” Of course there are free riders, but the protests should not be delegitimized by actions from the right-wing corner. Because that harms the concerns of the farmers.
“It hits people to the core, they don’t have enough money.”
The farmers have already achieved some of their original demands. On Thursday, Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) and his colleagues at the state level agreed that forestry and agricultural machinery would remain exempt from vehicle tax. And the subsidies for agricultural diesel should not fall immediately, but should be reduced over several years.
However, that is not enough for the farmers. “Political cuts like this clearly mean a decline in income. We can’t adjust to that so quickly,” says Wichert in an interview tagesschau.de. “It hits people to the core, there’s no money.” And that’s why many farmers will take to the streets in the coming week.
Farmers complain about loss of Planning security
Wichert is particularly bothered by the fact that agriculture can no longer rely on politics: “If we build a stable, then it has to be expected to last 20 years. We need reliability and planning security. This is necessary for survival, but has been possible in the last few years lost in politics.”
Democracy researcher Axel Salheiser also finds the protests themselves legitimate. However, you have to look closely at who joins them: “We have seen that the mobilization for the protests comes not only from the German farmers’ association, but also from networks that mobilized during the corona pandemic and the energy crisis. They are stuck Just join in with the protests.”