Campaign Promises Shift: Focus on Individual Benefits Over National Wealth
Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government has been in office for 100 days, but the first few months have been marked by broken promises and coalition chaos.
The government's approach to climate change has been a source of concern for many. While the majority of people are fighting the consequences of the climate crisis in their daily lives, the Minister of Economics, Reiche, is questioning the climate goals. Despite having more money available than any previous federal government, the Merz government is not investing in a sustainable future for the country.
The Germany ticket is set to become more expensive, and there is a threat of historic price increases of far above ten percent for train tickets in 2025. Subsidies for fossil energies that further heat the climate crisis are maintained, with 3.4 billion euros from the climate and transformation fund being misused for subsidizing the gas price. These gas power plants will increase electricity prices on the exchange, ensuring that savings effects of cheap renewable energies do not reach the people.
The budget draft contains tricks that hide the fact that funds are often used for expensive election gifts without growth or modernization impulses. For instance, funds are spent on mother's pensions and VAT relief in the catering industry instead of smart investments in schools, railways, and urban development.
The commitment by Katharina Reiche towards fossil infrastructure contradicts investment in future technologies that could secure prosperity. The Merz government is cutting the promotion for private solar installations, taking away the last area where people can contribute to the energy transition themselves.
Climate protection is to be halved in the long term through the conversion of forests, wet moors, and restored ecosystems, which does not protect us from the consequences of the climate crisis and does not stop the catastrophic loss of species.
The budget draft also reveals a lack of investment in essential infrastructure projects. No single additional rail project is to be implemented, and the revenues from the truck toll, which were fought for to finance the expansion of the railway, are now to flow exclusively into the road.
The announced abolition of the electricity tax is not carried out, despite it relieving all private households and companies in times of high energy prices and making an important contribution to eliminating the tax-induced disadvantage of renewable energies compared to fossil energy carriers.
The Merz government is choosing a costly, climate-damaging, and economically dangerous path, with plans for the state-controlled new construction of 20-gigawatt gas power plants. This decision is criticized for losing investments from the special infrastructure fund and instead focusing on expensive electoral effects like maternity pensions and tax reliefs in the hospitality sector, rather than smart investments in schools, transport, and urban development.
Friedrich Merz is squandering the unique opportunity to give this country an economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable future. The special reserve takes on historically high debts but does not reach the daily life of the people, with essential infrastructure projects like bridges, schools, and swimming pools not being renovated, new buses not being acquired, and municipal heat and energy networks not being modernized.
It is urgently necessary to invest in climate adaptation, prevention, and protection instead of questioning what can no longer be ignored.
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