Gillamoos folk festival
Söder and Kühnert argue about nuclear power at a morning pint – the Winnetou debate also gets a stage
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (right) and his colleague from North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, at the political morning pint at the Gillamoos folk festival
© Armin Weigel / DPA
In the Bavarian town of Abensberg, on Monday, politics once again met the atmosphere of a beer tent. At the traditional political morning pint at the Gillamoos folk festival, the focus was primarily on the energy crisis. But the Winnetou debate also made it – literally – onto the stage.
At the traditional political morning pint at the Gillamoos folk festival in Abensberg, Bavaria, the parties exchanged blows on Monday. The Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst (CDU), criticized the federal government’s relief plans as “big words, big numbers”. The traffic light coalition is moving “at a snail’s pace,” said the CDU politician in the Hofbräu tent. Wüst also criticized the planned taxation of so-called random profits from energy companies. “Random win – what is that supposed to be?” he asked. The only chance win that he knows was the victory of Olaf Scholz (SPD) in the federal election.
CSU boss Markus Söder, on the other hand, praised the relief package from the traffic light coalition. “There’s a lot going in the right direction,” he said in his speech after Wüst. In this way, some injustices will be eliminated, for example through the planned aid for pensioners and students. However, some things are not enough. Among other things, the increase in child benefit is too low. Söder also criticized the traffic light coalition for not paying enough attention to the energy crisis.
Gillamoos: Söder promotes nuclear power – criticism from Kühnert
The Bavarian Prime Minister therefore also reiterated his demand to extend the operating times of the nuclear power plants that are still in operation. “We need the electricity.” The SPD general secretary Kevin Kühnert gave a clear rejection. “With the SPD there is no re-entry into nuclear power,” he said in the Haereis marquee. This is not sustainable energy, but dangerous. The question of final storage has also not yet been clarified. Kühnert criticized Söder for his repeated statement that Bavaria was out of the question as a location for a repository. That is “ego politics à la Söder – what do I care how others feel about it in the end”.
Bavaria’s FDP leader Martin Hagen also sharply attacked Söder. He has only taken part in three state parliament sessions since the beginning of the year, but has attended 13 folk festivals in the past five weeks, said Hagen. “That’s good – in the beer tent he can do significantly less damage than on the government bench,” added the FDP politician.
The chairman of the European Committee in the Bundestag, Anton Hofreiter, held the main speech for the Greens. The people of Ukraine would defend the freedom of all of Europe and democracy for all of us, he said. “And the least we can do is support them and help them.”
Winnetou also gets a stage at the morning pint
After the morning pint had taken place without federal political prominence and without a folk festival in the last two years due to the pandemic, it has now traditionally returned to the beer tents. CSU, AfD and Free Voters used the folk festival to address the current debate about how to deal with Winnetou books in their interest. Free voter boss Hubert Aiwanger had a man come on stage whose costume was reminiscent of the Karl May hero.
Markus Söder countered by saying that he had always preferred to be Winnetou’s faithful companion Old Shatterhand in games – after all, he survived longer. The title melody of the Winnetou films roared out of the speakers in the CSU tent to set the mood – right after the controversial Ballermann hit “Layla”.
In Germany there is currently a debate about cultural appropriation and racism surrounding the Winnetou stories. It began after the Ravensburger publishing house announced in mid-August that it would stop the delivery of two children’s books for the film of the same name “The Young Chief Winnetou” and remove them from the program. There was a week-long sexism debate in the summer about the song “Layla” by DJ Robin and Schürze.