Farmers across Germany have been bringing major roads to a standstill in protests in recent days, piling misery on Chancellor Olaf Scholz\u2019s governing coalition amid fury over subsidy cuts. <\/p>\n
The protests are expected to reach new heights on Monday, with a crowd of over 10,000 people and their tractors set to descend on the capital in a rally organized in conjunction with the German freight industry. <\/p>\n
Multiple other protests are planned across the country, which come as official data showed Germany\u2019s economy shrank last year for the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n
Now, many are warning that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is capitalizing on the chaos for its own political gain. <\/p>\n
In the shadow of Berlin\u2019s iconic Brandenburg Gate, a convoy of up to 500 tractors lined up every day last week in\u00a0freezing\u00a0pre-dawn\u00a0temperatures. <\/p>\n
To keep themselves warm, farmers lit fires and drank hot mugs of tea and coffee. <\/p>\n
Major road blockages have stretched across cities from east to west including Hamburg, Cologne, Bremen, Nuremberg and Munich \u2013 with up to 2,000 tractors registered for each protest. Images\u00a0showed\u00a0convoys of tractors and trucks, some with\u00a0protest\u00a0banners, blocking German roads from the early-morning hours. <\/p>\n
Outside cities, Germany\u2019s fast-moving motorways have\u00a0also\u00a0been targeted by protesters, severely disrupting the flow of traffic. <\/p>\n
Farmers are enraged about government austerity plans, which would cut tax breaks for agriculture. Many have warned they will be driven out of business. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am here to protest for a new election in this country, because we are in difficulties with our government. They don\u2019t hear us, they make regulations that harm every one of us, not only the farmers but everyone in this country. And we think enough is enough.\u201d <\/p>\n
Steven, a farmer\u00a0from Western Pomerania\u00a0who did not give his last name,\u00a0said: \u201cAll the farmers standing here are worried about their livelihoods, about the livelihoods of farmers\u2026 This will only stop if the government resigns and there are other solutions.\u201d <\/p>\n
Scholz\u2019s government sparked a backlash in December when it made unexpected changes to a 2024 budget draft, modifying some of its planned subsidy cuts on January 4. Farmers say this doesn\u2019t go far enough, however, and are calling for a complete reversal. <\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s AfD party has increasingly made its presence felt at this week\u2019s demonstrations. <\/p>\n
Some of the tractors have been adorned with AfD posters, reading \u201cOur farmers first\u201d and \u201cGermany needs new elections.\u201d Far-right supporters wearing AfD vests could also be seen standing next to the vehicles. <\/p>\n
On social media, the AfD\u2019s official Facebook page has been reposting images from the protests and writing messages of solidarity with the demonstrators. <\/p>\n
\u201cSupporting democratic protests like this against traffic light madness will continue to be a concern of our hearts,\u201d one post reads. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will stay with you on the road, so that a policy for tax breaks, for supporting our agriculture and for the interests of our own citizens is finally made. The traffic light will soon be standing all alone.\u201d <\/p>\n
The \u201ctraffic light\u201d is a reference to Scholz\u2019s coalition government \u2013 an allusion to the colors of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens it is comprised of. <\/p>\n
On his personal Facebook page,\u00a0the\u00a0controversial leader of the AfD in the Eastern German state of Thuringia, Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke, launched an appeal: \u201cFellow citizens, we will see you on the roads!\u201d. The far-right politician is classified an extremist by Germany\u2019s\u00a0Office for the Protection of the Constitution. <\/p>\n
Other images shared on social media\u00a0showed\u00a0members of right-wing extremist groups including The Homeland and Third Way, as well as the AfD, attending a rally in Berlin. In Dresden, a video showed people with flags from the right-wing Free Saxony party clashing with police. <\/p>\n
Scholz, meanwhile, failed to address the nationwide\u00a0demonstrations the entire week. While attending a ceremonial commissioning of a new Deutsche Bahn maintenance depot \u2013 Germany\u2019s main rail operator \u2013 in the city of Cottbus on Thursday, the Chancellor was met with angry protesters. <\/p>\n
He refused to engage with them and did not directly address the unrest in a speech he gave at the event \u2013 a move which has caused further outrage among farmers who don\u2019t believe their voice is being heard by the federal government. <\/p>\n
For Johannes Kiess, a sociologist specializing in right-wing extremism at the University of Leipzig in eastern Germany, the AfD\u2019s involvement in the unrest doesn\u2019t come as a surprise. <\/p>\n
He points out that although the AfD\u2019s own\u00a0manifesto does not support the interests of Germany\u2019s farmers, the far-right party has a history of exploiting division. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo this end, it tries to increase the polarization using existing cleavages like rural\u00a0versus\u00a0urban.\u201d <\/p>\n
He continues: \u201cThe AfD used the Eurozone crisis as a window of opportunity to get started in the first place. Activists from the far-right were literally waiting for such an opportunity and with the so-called refugee crisis in 2015 they got a second crisis that helped them grow considerably. <\/p>\n
\u201cMigration is known as the bread-and-butter-issue for the far-right. Since then, the AfD has indeed used every crisis to fuel polarization, for example the pandemic, the war against Ukraine. Sometimes it works well, sometimes not.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to Kiess, the AfD has a clear market-liberal stance advocating for the\u00a0abolishment of all kinds of subsidies, including those for farmers, directly flying in the face of what the farmers are protesting for. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they are against climate friendly subsidies in particular, which could help farmers transform their businesses to make them environmentally and economically more sustainable. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, the AfD along with the CDU and the governing coalition\u00a0even\u00a0voted for the abolishment of the subsidies in question.\u201d <\/p>\n
The AfD, which has recently enjoyed record-high polling, is hoping for major gains in three eastern state elections this year \u2013 Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. Polling data released on Thursday put the party comfortably ahead of its rivals in all three states. <\/p>\n
While the regional elections do not directly affect federal politics, they could send a worrying signal to Scholz\u2019s SPD-led government ahead of next year\u2019s general election. <\/p>\n
German ministers and a domestic intelligence chief have warned how right-wing extremists could try to exploit the farmers\u2019 protests. <\/p>\n
Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who experienced the farmers\u2019 anger first-hand when a group of protesters tried to storm the ferry he was disembarking last week, has spoken of the far-right\u2019s \u201ccoup fantasies.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cCalls with coup fantasies are circulating. Extremist groups are forming and nationalist symbols are being openly displayed,\u201d Habeck told reporters on Monday. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is becoming clear that something has slipped in recent years, which has taken the boundaries off legitimate democratic protest.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd above all, we have seen that the Alternative for Germany in Thuringia, which has been classified as right-wing extremist in Thuringia since 2021, has also very specifically declared its solidarity with the farmers and called for corresponding protest marches.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kramer added\u00a0that the farmers\u2019 associations themselves have distanced themselves from the far-right. \u201cThey have made it very clear that they want nothing to do with them and that they are fighting for their own interests and concerns and do not want to be co-opted by the right-wing extremists.\u201d <\/p>\n
Similarly, Kiess said\u00a0that although farmers in Germany tend to be conservative-leaning, the majority do not support the far-right. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs in all segments of the population, there is also support of the AfD among farmers. However, farmers are known to vote disproportionally more for the conservative CDU\/CSU [Christian Democratic Union\/Christian Social Union]. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe current frustration with politics in general, not just the current government and subsidies for farmers, poses the risk of farmers becoming more\u00a0susceptible to the far-right as they feed on the anti-establishment theme,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Nadine Schmidt and Claudia Otto reported from Berlin and Sophie Tanno reported from and wrote in London. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n Farmers across Germany have been bringing major roads to a standstill in protests in recent days, piling misery on Chancellor Olaf Scholz\u2019s governing coalition amid fury over subsidy cuts. The protests are expected to reach new heights on Monday, with a crowd of over 10,000 people and their tractors set to descend on the capital <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}