Two activists remained topless next to the chancellor to protest against the country’s energy policies. Meanwhile, Scholz faces a decline in popularity and the aftermath of an old scandal
They approached the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was giving a speech at the time, they took off the sweatshirts they were wearing and remained bare-chested, revealing the writing: Gas embargo now (Embargo on gas, now) in black lettering on the skin.
the protest took place yesterday in Berlin, on the day when all citizens were given the opportunity to visit the gardens of the Chancellery and the ministries. Scholz therefore took the opportunity to give a speech – after answering S to a child who asked him if he is rich – but was interrupted by the two women who, in addition to being naked in front of the chancellor who remained impassive, they threw fake banknotes in the air and shouted protest slogans, including enough money for Putin. All this lasted a few seconds: the agents of the security team blocked them and removed them.
That of yesterday only the latest demonstration of mistrust towards the chancellor. Because, there are not only blatant demonstrations like that of the two Femen – a feminist protest movement, born in Ukraine in 2008 and of which the German girl was also an exponent who in 2015 jumped on the table of an ECB press conference while Mario Draghi replied to reporters. Right On Saturday, Scholz was greeted with boos in Neuruppin, a city of thirty thousand inhabitants northwest of the capital.
A few hours after the protest of the two Femen, a poll published in Germany photographed the internal difficulties of the chancellor: only one in four Germans believe that Scholz, former vice-chancellor of Angela Merkel before leading the SPD to victory in September last year, is doing a good job. And as many as 62% of the citizens of Germany (an unprecedented percentage) have little faith in the skills of the Social Democrat.
How much less decisive support for Ukraine and the government’s energy policies – which seemed intent on postponing the closure of the country’s three nuclear power plants, a decision denied by the Minister of Economy, the green Robert Habeck – were affected, is evident from the actual the collapse that the numbers certify: in March, the Germans who approved Scholz’s work were 46%, those of the opposite opinion 39%. Little, therefore, served the Chancellery’s commitment to surpass all Russian energy supplies by 2024.
But there are not only international issues. In recent days Scholz, who today wanted to Canada to discuss an agreement on hydrogen supplies from North America, ended up at the center of the controversy for the so-called Warburg case. On August 20, the Chancellor testified before the Parliamentary Commission to answer the allegations concerning him.
In 2016, the authorities of Hamburg – a city then administered by the SPD and led by Scholz – allegedly waived tax recoveries from the bank for a total amount of 47 million euros: a fact that, according to some, was nothing more than a favor of the local Social Democrats at the institute, involved in a scandal of tax fraud. Scholz has always said that he is not involved in any involvement. But the scandal resurfaced a few weeks after that the magistrates revealed that they had discovered 200 thousand euros in cash in a safe deposit box in the name of Johannes Kahrs, a former member of the Hamburg SPD near Scholz. Kahrs, investigators suspect, may have acted to guarantee the bank a favorable decision.
From the diaries of Christian Olearius, then CEO of the bank, it emerged that Scholz would have met him at least three times.. Scholz, for him, had said during the election campaign last year that he had no memory of personal meetings with the banker. But in 2020, in a parliamentary testimony behind closed doors, he had admitted that the face to face had actually beenbut he had guaranteed that he had done nothing but listen to the banker’s point of view.
August 22, 2022 (change August 22, 2022 | 12:37)
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