Germany

By Orla Dwyer - The Conversation, February 5, 2024

From Berlin and Paris, to Brussels and Bucharest, European farmers have driven their tractors to the streets in protest over recent weeks. 

According to reports, these agricultural protesters from across the European Union have a series of concerns, including competition from cheaper imports, rising costs of energy and fertiliser, and environmental rules. 

Farmers’ groups in countries including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Romania have all been protesting over the past couple of months. 

The UK’s Sunday Telegraph has tried to frame the protests as a “net-zero revolt” with several other media outlets saying the farmers have been rallying against climate or “green” rules. 

Carbon Brief has analysed the key demands from farmer groups in seven countries to determine how they are related to greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, biodiversity or conservation. 

The findings show that many of the issues farmers are raising are directly and indirectly related to these issues. But some are not related at all. Several are based on policy measures that have not yet taken effect, such as the EU’s nature restoration law and a South American trade agreement. 

By Florian Ranft and Johanna Siebert - Green European Journal, January 19, 2024

External shocks, coalition infighting, and an opportunistic far right have driven the German government’s approval rate to a new low. Contested climate policies offer Greens in Berlin and across Europe some useful lessons: to gain support from the people, the green transition needs to address social concerns, allow for democratic participation, and be implemented locally.

Economic recession, budget cuts, and the rise of the far right are the new reality in Germany – an explosive mix, we know from historical experience. Little over two years into government, the self-proclaimed “coalition of progress” is being put to the test. The approval ratings of the coalition parties ‒ the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) ‒ are at a new low, even though the coalition has implemented many of its policy pledges. 

While it’s not uncommon for mid-term approval ratings to be low, the government is going through a particularly tough time. Setting out with the ambition to “dare more progress” by boosting renewables, expanding affordable housing, and raising spending on education, the governing parties have found themselves sidetracked. The multiple interlocking crises of Putin’s war in Ukraine, surging energy prices, the rising cost of living, and higher borrowing costs certainly played a role.

On top of that, the ideological differences between the coalition partners have made finding common ground on economic and social reforms difficult. This is particularly true for climate policies, as demonstrated last year by the dispute over the Building Energy Act. The Green party’s flagship bill ‒ aimed at phasing out oil and gas heating systems ‒ was vehemently opposed by the FDP as too costly, opening a rift in the coalition. What was intended as a major step towards reaching Germany’s emission target in the building sector has now been so watered down that the country looks unlikely to reach its 2030 emissions reduction target.

While the Greens are pushing for pragmatic change within the limits of what’s possible, the FDP ‒ reflecting a reform-sceptic electorate ‒ is calling for a return to “fiscal prudence” after Germany suspended the constitutional “debt brake” for the fourth year in a row in 2023. The SPD and its Chancellor Olaf Scholz play the role of mediating the tension, while also pushing their own signature policies such as increasing the minimum wage to 12 euros per hour and expanding social security benefits. Yet, there is an open question regarding Scholz’s leadership within the coalition. Especially in terms of international politics, the chancellor’s agenda seems directionless in light of global challenges. 

Meanwhile, the (far) right has been capitalising on the governmental infighting. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is successfully taking advantage of the general discontent and the heightened sense of economic and social insecurity. In the latest state elections in Bavaria and Hessen last October, the AfD achieved its best-ever results in western Germany. Since last summer, the AfD has been steadily ahead of all government coalition parties in national polls. Today it is in the lead in Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony – three East German states due to hold regional elections this year. And it is also making gains at the local level, with the AfD’s first county commissioner in Sonneberg, Thuringia, and first mayors in Raguhn-Jeßnitz, Saxony-Anhalt and Pirna, Saxony. Although these are relatively small cities, the political victories have a high symbolic meaning.

The furore over the Building Energy Act appears to be a taste of what’s to come. The more ambitious and far-reaching the climate proposal, the stronger the political and societal resistance – a development that tends to play into the hands of far-right actors. How can progressives counter the far right’s challenges without compromising their reform agenda ahead of the European elections in June? 

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, November 2, 2023

By Susan Price, Rika Müller-Vahl, Jeremy Brecher, Ferron Pedro, and Luke Esoiritu
- Global Ecosocialist Network, June 18, 2023

By Lynn Fries and Robert Pollin - The Analysis News, March 27, 2023

By Federico Fuentes and Christian Zeller - Green Left, October 19, 2022

Across Europe, protests have been growing over rising gas prices, with Germany no exception. Politicians have sought to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine — or, alternatively, sanctions imposed by Europe — for the situation.

But is this the case? How should ecosocialists approach the interrelated issues of climate, war, gas prices and international solidarity?

Green Left’s Federico Fuentes discussed these issues with Christian Zeller, a professor of economic geography and editorial board member of the German-language journal, emancipation — Journal for Ecosocialist Strategy. Zeller is also the author of Climate Revolution: Why we need an ecosocialist alternative (available in German).

By Andreas Malm - International Viewpoint, September 12, 2022

Andreas Malm is a Swedish ecosocialist activist and author of several books on fossil capital, global warming and the need to change the course of events initiated by the burning of fossil fuels over the last two centuries of capitalist development. The Jeunes Anticapitalistes (the youth branch of the Gauche Anticapitaliste, the Belgian section of the Fourth International) met him at the 37th Revolutionary Youth Camp organized in solidarity with the Fourth International in France this summer, where he was invited as a speaker.

As left-wing activists in the climate movement, we sometimes feel stuck by what can be seen as a lack of strategic perspectives within the movement. How can we radicalize the climate movement and why does the movement need a strategic debate in your opinion?

I share the feeling, but of course it depends on the local circumstances – this Belgian “Code Red” action, this sort of Ende Gelände or any similar kind of thing, sounds promising to me, but you obviously know much more about it than I do. In any case, the efforts to radicalize the climate movement and let it grow can look different in different circumstances.

One way is to try to organize this kind of big mass actions of the Ende Gelände type, and I think that’s perhaps the most useful thing we can do. But of course, there are also sometimes opportunities for working within movements like Fridays for Future or Extinction Rebellion for that matter and try to pull them in a progressive direction as well as to make them avoid making tactical mistakes and having an apolitical discourse. In some places, I think that this strategy can be successful. Of course, one can also consider forming new more radical climate groups that might initially be pretty small, but that can be more radical in terms of tactics and analysis, and sort of pull others along, or have a “radical flank” effect. So, I don’t have one model for how to do this – it really depends on the state of the movement in the community where you live and obviously the movement has ups and downs (it went quite a lot down recently after the outbreak of the pandemic, but hopefully we’ll see it move back up).

Finally, it’s obviously extremely important to have our own political organizations that kind of act as vessels for continuity and for accumulating experiences, sharing them and exchanging ideas. Our own organizations can also be used as platforms for taking initiatives within movements or together with movements.

By Paul Atkin - Greener Jobs Alliance, August 4, 2022

TSSA calls for public transport fares to be slashed – let’s all do the same!

In a sharply worded blog on the TSSA web site, General Secretary Manuel Cortes notes that we have to deal with

two crises running in parallel – the climate … heating up at an unprecedented rate leading to increased extreme weather disasters and …an ever-deepening Tory cost of living crisis, inflation and costs are up, but wages are stagnant

and calls for a sharp cut in public transport fares to reduce costs, fossil fuel use and pollution. 

By Josefina L. Martínez - Left Voice, July 12, 2022

Strikes over wage increases or working conditions are occurring in response to high inflation, aggravated by the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. These labor actions show a change in the mood of the European working class.

Are we heading toward a summer of discontent in Europe? Can we foresee a hot autumn on the Continent? It would be hasty to make such statements, but new strike activity is beginning to unfold among sectors of several countries’ working class. Inflation reached 8.8 percent as a European average in May (with higher rates in countries like the UK and Spain). After years of inflation below 1.5 percent, this is a significant change that is causing a fall in the population’s purchasing power, especially among the working class. Many analysts are already talking about the possibility of stagflation: a combination of recession and inflation.

This is in addition to the political instability of several governments and a widespread dissatisfaction with the traditional parties. The latter was expressed in France in the last elections, with high abstention and the growth of Marine Le Pen’s far-right party and of the center-left coalition grouped around Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Emmanuel Macron lost his absolute majority in the National Assembly and now faces a five-year period of great political uncertainty. Another government in crisis is that of the UK, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson is stepping down.

In this context, recent weeks have seen strikes taking place in key sectors, including transport, steel, ports, and public services, as well as in more precarious sectors. Although there are differences among these countries, the strikes are opening a breach in the climate of “national unity” that governments tried to impose a few months ago, when the war in Ukraine began. In this article we review some of these labor conflicts in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and other countries.