After giving in in Hanover, the Mayor of Marburg, Thomas Spies (SPD), says he has also come to an agreement with climate activists from the last generation. The activists had promised to refrain from sticking to the streets of Marburg in the future, Spies announced on Monday. He himself had written a letter to the federal government and the democratic parliamentary groups in the Bundestag, in which he “supported the substantive demands of the last generation,” it said in a statement. A Last Generation spokesman confirmed the agreement.
Last generation climate activists are offering to halt their nationwide or local protests if governments agree to their demands. This was partly met with sharp criticism. “Blackmail is not an expression of legitimate protest,” said the domestic spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Manuel Höferlin, to “Welt”. That’s why he considers it “naïve and dangerous if individual municipalities now give in to this blackmail, because the next escalation will definitely follow”.
Spies, on the other hand, said on Monday: “I’m pleased that we managed to find solutions in constructive discussions. Our actions and our attitude in Marburg were obviously convincing.” Of course it is “not allowed to stick to the street”. That is why Marburg was “prepared early on”. Until the protests were “suspended” due to the “ongoing negotiations”, corresponding activities could be observed almost daily. The rules of the rule of law would “of course also apply in Marburg,” it said.
Spies also told the broadcaster hr-Info that the city would not allow itself to be blackmailed. He agreed to the agreement with the activists and the letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) because the goals of the activists coincided with those of the city. The letter “expresses what has been decided in the university town of Marburg,” says Spies. At the same time he explained: “Of course what they’re doing is illegal. There’s no misconduct at all. I think my first duty is to ensure that law and order can be implemented in my city. That’s exactly what I have done with it. That I wrote a letter that conveys the decisions of the city.”
Similar to Hanover, Spies supported in the letter, among other things, the demand for the convening of a “social council” made up of representative and randomly selected citizens. They should “discuss the question of how we can achieve zero emissions in Germany by 2030,” said the letter in which Chancellor Scholz and the other recipients asked “benevolently to examine and positively support” the demands of the climate activists.