2024-09-06 22:14:11
The election of the parties of the German Social Democratic-Green-Liberal coalition government in the elections held on 1 September in the western states of Thuringia and Saxony and the significant advance of the far-right and the radical left show high levels . social discontent.
The focus of politicians and the media on the issue of immigration serves to hide the real roots of this anxiety: increasing inequality, loss of purchasing power, deterioration of public services, housing costs, economic decline and housing- work and return to the policy of austerity, when Germany and other countries of the European Union (EU) need more than ever of the decision industry, technology, security and public investment policy not to fall even further behind in the United States and China.
Germany is the epitome of the economic and political crisis in which the EU is sinking, due to the weakness and incompetence of many European leaders who, as pointed out in April by the savior of the Euro and former President of the Central Bank European. (ECB) Mario Draghi, continues to live with the rules and mentality of “yesterday’s world”.
In Thuringia, the three parties in the German government coalition only managed to add up to 10% of the vote. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats came in fifth with 6.1% of the vote and the Greens and Liberals failed to win any seats in the state parliament. Despite a very high turnout of 73.6%, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the election with 32.8% of the vote. The two radical left parties – the new Alliance Aliança Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) and L’Esquerra (Die Linke) – add up to 28.9%, while the CDU conservatives have 23.6%.
In Saxony, the CDU is down with 31.9%, followed by the ultra AfD with 30.6%. The third place, as in Thuringia, went to the new left alliance BSW with 11.8%. The two forces of the left have a combined 16.3% of the votes, better than the votes obtained in total by the three parties of the government coalition (13.3%). Globally in Germany, the polls placed the AfD as the second largest force in the country with 18% of the vote, ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD)’s 15%. In the European elections in June, the AfD has been the second most voted force (15.9%), surpassing the SPD (13.90%).
Germany is the third EU country with the most unequal distribution of wealth after Sweden and the Czech Republic, according to data from the World Wealth Database 2023 by the Union of Swiss Banks (UBS). The richest 10% of families in Germany hold 63% of the country’s total wealth. Rising wages in Germany have not compensated for the loss of purchasing power from inflation in 2022-2023 and the worsening income inequality within the country, according to the European Trade Union Institute’s Benchmarking Working Europe (CASE) 2024 Working Europe report. ).
Criticisms for serious deficiencies in health and education have been added to the decline, damage and inefficiency of the railway network due to the lack of investment caused by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s austerity policy. In addition, in the East German states, the citizens’ conflict is increasing due to the belief that they and their state are being treated as second-class citizens 34 years after unification.
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The German economy is going through a deep crisis with four quarters in a row with the annual domestic product (GDP) lower than the same quarter of the previous year and with 209,000 more unemployed in July than a year ago, according to Eurostat. Industrial production is 4.1% lower than a year ago, construction activity has fallen another 4.4% annually and investor confidence is at an eight-year low. Volkswagen Group is planning to close two factories in Germany and chemical giant BASF is moving production out of the country, as is Infineon, Germany’s largest semiconductor producer.
In this context, the budget reforms and investment cuts, ordered by the Minister of Finance, the liberal Christian Lindner, look like a recipe for economic and political disaster, with the exception that he is a minor partner of the government coalition and His FDP party only has the support of 5% of voters, according to polls.
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