BERLIN (AP) – A group of farmers blocked Germany's deputy chancellor from disembarking a ferry, hours after the government partially rolled back cost-cutting plans that have infuriated the agricultural sector. The protests drew condemnation from both the government and opposition parties.
Following calls for protests on social media, farmers headed to the pier in Schlüetsiel on the North Sea coast on Thursday afternoon ahead of the arrival of a ferry carrying Deputy Prime Minister Robert Habeck, police said Friday. Habeck was on a personal trip to the small island of Fuge.
Between 250 and 300 people gathered for the demonstration. Police said that the tense situation made it impossible to arrange a dialogue between Habeck and the organizers, so the ferry departed again. Up to 30 protesters tried to board the ship, but police used pepper spray to stop them.
German Economy Minister Robert Herbeck was returning from vacation when protesting farmers prevented him from leaving the ferry for several hours.
The government, main opposition parties, and farmers' unions quickly condemned the event. pic.twitter.com/UyyS1gski2
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) January 5, 2024
Habeck, a member of the environmentalist Green Party and Minister of Economy and Climate Change, was able to reach the mainland overnight.
Prime Minister Scholz's unpopular government angered farmers in December by announcing plans to cut agricultural subsidies as part of a package to plug a 17 billion euro ($18.6 billion) hole in the 2024 budget. Farmers staged a tractor protest in Berlin and called for more demonstrations next week.
On Thursday, the government announced a partial reversal. He said he would maintain the automobile tax exemption for agricultural vehicles and stagger tax cuts for agricultural diesel.
German farmers' associations immediately said the changes did not go far enough. He said he still demanded the withdrawal of both proposals and would stick to his planned protests.
Scholz's spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said on social platform X (formerly Twitter) that the ferry blockade was “shameful and violates the rules of a democratic society.” Justice Minister Marco Buschmann wrote: “Violence against people or property has no place in political debate!” This discredits the cause of the many farmers who are peacefully demonstrating. ”
The anti-Green Agenda tractor protesters have turned their enormous energy into political success, rising overnight from nothing to becoming one of the largest parties in the Dutch Senate. https://t.co/fFgVX1wJ76
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 16, 2023
Hendrik Wust, governor of North Rhine-Westphalia and a member of Germany's main conservative opposition bloc, wrote about X: “We share the farmers' concerns, but this violation is absolutely unacceptable.” You will get results. ”
“This kind of blockade is absolutely unacceptable,” Joachim Lukwied, president of the German Farmers' Association, said in a statement Friday. “Personal attacks, abuse, intimidation, coercion and violence are not right,” he said, adding that the association respects the privacy of politicians.
Habeck said he regretted not being able to talk to the farmers.
“The reason I think and am concerned is that the atmosphere in this country has become very heated,” Habeck said in a statement.
It comes after Germany's top court reversed a decision to repurpose 60 billion euros (about $66 billion), originally intended to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, to combat climate change. , necessitated a budget review that included the disputed cuts. Modernize the country. This maneuver violated strict self-imposed limits on debt growth that Germany had imposed.
