Vienna 2/22/2022
See what the discussion in the German Bundestag looks like today. AfD MP Rene Springer addressed the Greens, who are currently part of the governing coalition. Quote from Telegram: Bittel TV – Simply different:
German drivers in the border region with Poland can save around 60 cents per liter if they fill up their tanks in the neighboring country. The difference is due to the reduction in VAT, which the Polish government introduced in response to rising fuel prices. The AfD therefore submitted a motion that fuel prices should also be reduced in Germany.
Now the Greens would not be the Greens if they responded to factual politics with factual political arguments. Therefore, unsurprisingly, her deputy Audretsch preferred to adopt moral policy. He could make it very short at this point, he replied to a colleague from the AfD.
“A well-fortified democracy also includes not speaking to certain groups. That’s the principle. And that means for me that I don’t talk to right-wing extremists, I don’t enter into a political dialogue with right-wing extremists.” That was the only thing he could answer in this question, Audretsch explained briefly and said goodbye to the applause of the SPD and Greens to his parliamentary seat.
So much complacency may well go down well with their own clientele, who, as is well known, tend to be among the economically better off classes of the Greens. The battered citizens, who have to dig deeper and deeper into their wallets at the pump, may have little sympathy for the fact that their growing financial worries are brushed aside with a succinct accusation of right-wing extremism.
For a Green MP, the best answer to cutting VAT on fuel seems to be for the European Commission to penalize Poland for “environmental policy mistakes”.
Author of the article: Marek Wojcik