Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) expressed hope for a compromise in the conflict over the federal austerity plans before the talks scheduled for Monday between representatives of the farmers’ association and the traffic light coalition. Farmers and people in rural areas would expect that there would be prospects for them overall. “Many problems have built up in the last few years, not just during the time of the traffic light government, in rural areas. And that has to be solved now,” said Schwesig on Sunday in the ZDF program “Berlin Direkt”.
In your opinion, the current austerity plans are hitting people in rural areas particularly hard. In addition, commuters there would be burdened by the CO2 price. “The wind turbines that we set up in rural areas are not in the city. And the network fees are rising there. There are many issues and we have to ensure that the city and the country stay together,” warned the Schwerin head of government.
The vast majority of citizens want climate protection, but it must also be feasible and affordable. “I experienced the traffic light coalition negotiations and really had a lot of hope that we would be able to combine economic, social and ecological issues and not put them against each other. The spirit that was back then was more about putting these things together and maybe not like that There should be a lot of arguing about it, it should be revived,” demanded Schwesig. Most people just wanted government to be governed and decisions to be well explained.
At the start of the recent protests, Schwesig supported the farmers’ demands and called on the federal government to completely reverse the planned subsidy cuts for agriculture. “The farmers are pissed off. And rightly so, because two sources of funding are to be withdrawn from them overnight without prior notice,” she said after discussions with farmers in Bad Doberan.
