Germany’s Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, faced a crowd of protesting farmers angered by tax increases. Addressing the 10,000-strong demonstration in Berlin, he stated there were no funds for additional subsidies.
The protests, causing a near standstill in the city, marked a week of anti-government anger over taxes. Lindner emphasized the challenge but proposed joint efforts for farmers to experience more freedom and respect for their work, despite limitations on state aid.
The protests have heaped pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition as it struggles to fix budget disarray and contain right-wing groups.
The protests surged after a government decision to phase out a tax break on agricultural diesel as it tried to balance its 2024 budget following a constitutional court ruling in November that forced it to revise its spending plans.
Faced with a backlash, the government has already said it maintain a tax rebate on new agricultural vehicles and spread the scrapping of the agricultural diesel subsidy over several years.
But farmers, with the vocal backing of the opposition conservatives and the far-right, say that is not enough.
“I have respect for every politician who is prepared to come to us,” said Farmers’ Union head Joachim Rukwied, who at one moment had to take the microphone from Lindner and beg the crowd to stop jeering for long enough to listen to him.
“The finance minister is here,” he said. “It makes no sense to boo him.”
The government has taken a conciliatory tone as concern has grown that political debate has become radicalised and demonstrations could turn violent. Protest leaders will meet coalition leaders later this afternoon.
Lindner, describing himself as a lad from the countryside who had mucked out stables in his time, sought, to little avail, to win over farmers by contrasting their peaceful protest in Berlin to the behaviour of climate activists who had sprayed paint on the Brandenburg Gate – “the symbol of German national unity”.
But he said scarce money was needed for long neglected investments in schools and roads and for industrial energy subsidies.
Jeers grew especially loud when Lindner said money was needed because of the war in Ukraine.
“With the war in Ukraine, peace and freedom in Europe are threatened once again, so we have to invest once again in our security as we used to,” he said.
Vehicles that arrived overnight from across Germany parked nose-to-tail along the route, and crowds of farmers, wrapped up against the cold, waved German flags and held up banners marked with slogans including: “Without farmers, no future”.
