The parties position themselves for the Bundestag election. Follow all developments in the news blog.
Six weeks before the federal election, the SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz called on his party to fight for the election victory. “A departure is possible for our country. We can get a government that tackles the tasks of the future,” he said at the start of the SPD in the hot election campaign phase in Bochum. It is good that the SPD’s polls are giving the SPD a tailwind. He is also “very touched” by the fact that many people trust him to be head of government. The SPD must now make more of it and convince many people.
Scholz categorically rejects tax relief for high earners. “This is not only unfinanced, it is not based on solidarity and is immoral.” The finance minister reminded that the state was taking an enormous financial outlay to counteract the corona crisis. At the end of next year, he says, it will be 400 billion euros. “That’s why it’s something very, very strange when, in this situation, after we’ve done this, after we’ve stuck together in this way, some people think, people who earn as much as I do or a lot more, they really need some tax relief now. “
Scholz invoked “cohesion and solidarity” in society in the future too. What Germany carried through the pandemic must also be the principle in many other life situations. (14.8.2021)
The SPD and CDU show solidarity with the Greens because of the abuse campaign
The SPD and CDU have sided with the Greens and condemned the invective posters against the party that have been on view in many major German cities for a few days. “# GrünerMist is # RechterMüll,” wrote SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil on Twitter. “Democrats stick together.” On a red-green tile was written “Separated in colors, united in the matter against the right”. SPD Vice Kevin Kühnert tweeted: “Solidarity with the Greens and everyone who will be hit next.”
CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak joined the criticism of the abuse. “Part of a fair election campaign is to take the floor if it is not against your own party: The filth that is currently being poured out on the Greens by AfD and NPD-affiliated circles & is being fired with a poster campaign is disgusting” , wrote Ziemiak on Twitter and assured his “full solidarity”.
The posters are optically designed like green posters, but the sunflowers hang their heads on them and there are words like “Destruction of Prosperity”, “Climate Socialism” or “Ecoterror” on them. According to his own statement, behind this is the former CSU member David Bendels with his agency “Conservare Communication GmbH”. He wanted to make it clear that the Greens pose a threat to Germany.
Bendels is also chairman of the right-wing conservative “Association for the Preservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties”, which in the past had produced posters and brochures calling for the election of the AfD in several election campaigns. The current campaign is “in no way related to the AfD,” said Bendels. The AfD had also announced that there was “no connection whatsoever between the AfD and the anti-Green campaign in question”. (08/12/2021)
Merkel wants to appear in the election campaign on August 21
Chancellor Angela Merkel is now also to become active in the Union’s election campaign. A CDU spokesman announced that an appointment was planned for August 21 in the Berlin Tempodrom. At first it remained unclear whether the outgoing Chancellor would appear together with CDU boss and Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet.
The move is considered extraordinary in that Merkel has so far avoided at all costs publicly and aggressively in the search for her successor.
But both the Union and Laschet have recently lost a lot of approval in the polls. After the flood disaster in western Germany in mid-July, Laschet made headlines with several appearances that were perceived as unhappy. (08/12/2021)
CDU calls on SPD to withdraw from controversial election campaign spot
The CDU has asked the SPD to forego a controversial election campaign spot. “The best thing now would be for everyone not to turn this into a major debate in the election campaign, but simply to simply withdraw this film,” said CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak in Berlin on Monday. One should “no longer misuse a religious creed in order to campaign against others”.
The trigger is an SPD election spot in which one CDU politician after the other emerges from a matryoshka doll. “Whoever votes for Armin Laschet and the CDU, votes …” says one voice. To the doll with the likeness of CDU economic politician Friedrich Merz, the voice goes on to say “… a policy that makes rich richer and poor poorer”. For the doll with the face of the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, the sentence is supplemented with “… candidates who push the CDU to the right margin”.
Next comes a doll with the likeness of the Düsseldorf State Chancellery and Laschet intimate Nathanael Liminski. Here the sentence is supplemented with “… arch-Catholic Laschet confidants, for whom sex before marriage is a taboo”. This alludes to a statement made by the avowed Catholic, which he justified as a “personal decision” on the ARD program “Maischberger” in 2007. Liminski was still a student at the time. In the program he also spoke out “against any kind of artificial contraception”.
Ziemiak said: “We imagined the SPD’s commitment to a fair election campaign to be different.” Apparently it is a “new style of the SPD”. Her top candidate Olaf Scholz now has to explain “whether he wants to continue to abuse his religious affiliation, his affiliation with the Catholic faith, for a campaign in the election campaign”. The film also caused great outrage among the population.
The German Bishops’ Conference was also critical. Dealing with an expression of religious belief is inappropriate, said a spokeswoman for the editorial network Germany. “We are promoting a fair election campaign, which should be carried out on the basis of factual issues and in dealing with the election programs.”
In an interview with RTL West, Laschet also spoke up on Monday evening. After a tweet from the RTL regional window, Laschet said: “I was surprised by the methods that Olaf Scholz is now using to campaign for elections.” The interview should be broadcast from 6 p.m. (08/10/2021)
Schulze: Evidence for man-made climate change “overwhelming”
Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze calls for an amendment to the Basic Law in order to be able to involve the federal government in protecting Germany from the consequences of climate change. “The adaptation to floods and drought will continue to accompany us in the next few years,” said the SPD politician in Düsseldorf Rheinische Post before the publication of the new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday. “So far, the federal states and municipalities have been responsible for this. I advocate joint financing with the federal government because we have to prepare ourselves permanently for more frequent extreme weather events.”
The July floods in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate had killed more than 180 people. Numerous localities suffered severe damage, some of them severe. Referring to the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Schulze said: “The report also makes it unmistakably clear that we have to be prepared for more and more extreme weather events in Germany as well. They won’t go away, because we can’t turn back the climate change that has already taken place. We can But slow down global heating. ” Schulze also emphasized that there was no longer any doubt about man-made climate change. “The evidence is overwhelming.” (08/09/2021)
AfD boss Chrupalla questions asylum law and does not distance himself from controversial candidates
AfD boss Tino Chrupalla questioned the right of asylum in a conversation he had on the sidelines of the ARD summer interview. The moderator wanted to know from Chrupalla what should happen to Afghans who had supported the Bundeswehr on site. He asked if, in Chrupalla’s opinion, they could come to Germany and apply for asylum. After all, if the Taliban continued to gain power in Afghanistan, they would have to fear for their lives. If it were up to Chrupalla, those affected could apply for asylum, but before entering Germany. With this, the AfD boss is against the law. Such exceptions therefore only apply to people arriving from another European country or from a safe third country. Afghanistan is not one of them.
Chrupalla also did not distance himself from his party’s controversial candidates for the federal election during the summer interview. He was asked specifically whether he was distancing himself from Jens Maier, who is second on the Saxon state list after Chrupalla. The AfD member of the Bundestag Maier had been classified as a right-wing extremist by the protection of the constitution.
Chrupalla then said: “I can only distance myself from statements that I have made myself.” He doesn’t start to distance himself from people all the time. There are several currents in the party. As federal spokesman, he must try to unite them. “And I succeed.” Looking at the Saxon state list, he said: “All people have a flawless police clearance certificate.”
Chrupalla was also asked about the controversial North Rhine-Westphalian AfD Bundestag candidate Matthias Helferich because of statements in a chat and why he was against a party expulsion process. Chrupalla said the federal executive had spoken out in favor of tough “party regulatory measures” such as a ban on office. According to party circles, there was no majority in the federal executive committee at last Monday’s meeting to exclude Helferich from the party.
In May, Helferich was elected to the promising seventh place on the state list for the federal election in NRW. In a video that he published on his Facebook page shortly before the meeting of the federal executive board, Helferich addressed the allegations. For example, he did not deny that he described himself as the “friendly face of NS” in a chat. However, this term was merely a third-party attribution by left-wing bloggers whom he “satirized”, he explained in his video. (08/09/2021)