Elections in Germany: TV trio debate
On Sunday evening, four weeks before Germany's parliamentary elections, the most promising chancellor candidates Armin Laschet (CDU), Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Annalena Baerbock (The Greens) shared their views on key campaign issues in a televised debate. Commentators are divided over just how bold the candidates' statements on climate policy were.
Debate on climate protection behind the times
The candidates' statements on climate protection were a real yawner, the taz sighs:
“It would have been interesting to hear what the three had to say about the fact that their election programmes are not enough to make a fair contribution to keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees. Instead, the questions and discussion largely revolved around the allegedly high costs of climate protection - this in a year when taxpayers are likely to pay 30 billion euros in aid for damage from floods that were also caused by climate change. This seems very behind the times.”
Most people don't want change
Dagens Nyheter, on the other hand, finds the Green candidate's strategy of promising fundamental change extremely courageous:
“It may seem like the easiest strategy in the world to promise change as an opposition party and to insist that one will do everything better than the previous government. But Annalena Baerbock's speeches on change are unlikely to go down well with every TV viewer in Germany. In a country where nearly 40 percent of voters are over 60 and Angela Merkel of the CDU remains the most popular German politician, speeches about sweeping change are anything but an attempt to woo audiences.”