After two years in the federal government, Agriculture Minister Özdemir draws a mixed conclusion: The traffic light made mistakes, but the results are acceptable. However, this threatens to be lost due to the disputes.
Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Alliance 90/The Greens) criticizes his own government coalition. “The traffic light has truly made mistakes,” he said in Düsseldorf at the Ständehaus meeting of the Rheinische Post. Above all, he criticized the government’s external image. “We will ensure that our acceptable balance sheet is not received because we argue like tinkers.”
The past two years, for example, have been the most successful for agriculture; the number of farm deaths has decreased. Nevertheless, the farmers’ protests now threatened to slip away even from the conservative farmers’ associations.
Özdemir: Was on savings decisions not involved
When he took office as Federal Agriculture Minister, he “found a barrel full to the brim” and the government managed to overflow the barrel with the savings decisions on agricultural diesel, for example. Özdemir emphasized again that he was not involved. The partial correction of the resolutions also came too late. “The protests were already organized.”
“The traffic light could learn a lesson from the very successful black-green coalitions in North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg,” said the 58-year-old. His constituency is in Baden-Württemberg. Criticism of one’s own party was echoed in the heating law: people underestimated society’s weariness with change.
Özdemir asks opposition to end blockade
But the mountain of problems did not arise in the last two years and there are also merits: Despite “the idiotic dependence on Putin’s gas,” Germany got through the winter well. He now wonders what the previous governments did when tax revenues bubbled up: “The infrastructure is in a disastrous state.”
Özdemir appealed to the opposition to give up their blockade in the Federal Council. The Growth Opportunities Act is important for the economy. “It’s not just traffic light problems, it’s national problems.” It is time to put national interests before party welfare.