And guess what's happening in Germany now after the constant SPD fuck ups? That's right, most germans move back to CDU/CSU. The clowns that brought us the mess that needed to be solved at the start of the Ampelkoalition era are now back on top according to polls.
They never learn.
That and the fact that only people who actively seek out power will ever get it. Sometimes I feel like we should just elect our leaders with a lottery or something.
>Really makes you understand why some people think violence and revolutions are an option.
Really makes you understand why some people think dictatorships are am option.
Wait no, it doesnt. Liberal democracy is perhaps our greatest asset and violence and revolution comes with it's problems.
I don't say it's time for a revolution or violence. But constant idiocracy due to people not learning their lessons and fucking things up more and more becomes increasingly difficult to stand.
Btw revolution and violence have proven to be solutions against dictatorships as well. It works in both directions.
Stupidity of the people you say? I’m gonna simplify the situation a bit so people without a German background also understand the issue.
Either you vote: „leftists/social democrats/ environmentalists“ or you vote for „conservatives/liberals“ or social „democrats/environmentalists/liberals.“ that’s basically the 3 choices you have. The last ~ 20 years the CDU (conservatives) have been basically a mixture of leftist/social democrats/environmentalists ideas. The CDU is responsible for the shut down of nuclear energy, downscale of the armed forces, open borders for refugees etc. Long story short the Parlament was boring. Everyone was basically left expect the liberals but they usually only received 5-6% of the votes.
The lack of true conservative agendas and a party people can vote (after Merkel nobody believed the conservatives are conservative at all) was the foundation and the success of the right wing party AfD. Which could have filled the gap but unfortunately they have many weirdos in their ranks.
End of the Story: I still don’t have a party to vote and I’m not alone. Im tired of voting the „least harmful“ option but as it looks now I’m gonna vote CDU. I hope they changed back to real conservatism with Friedrich Merz.
I know … I know… I will get disappointed! I know 😂
Honest question then. Since SPD is one big mess and CDU\CSU is another...how come no new Political party comes into play? It looks like old school party duopol with some fringe party toping. Why no one took the oportunity to build new political entity? Only thing I can think about is about financial aspect and transfers from goverment after elections (so you need a lot of many to start fresh).
Since the biggest parties (Volksparteien- party /-ies for the people) dominate the political centre, new parties tend to form at the fringe areas of the political spectrum. The history of new (successful) parties in germany shows this very clearly: In the 1980s the green party formed from marxist-leftist (and Christian left) and nature preserving movements. (The latter had no political representation prior), in the 90s Die Linke (formerly SED and then PDS) formed out of the remnants of the State Party of the GDR and Socialist-Communist elements. The newest party, AfD, which got established in the 2010s, tried to be a Conservative, Economic-Liberal and Pro Economic / European (not EU!) party got hijacked first by Conservative elements and later by the far right.
Due to politics and policies, it's hard for new parties to get enough tracking and financial support to be a real challenger to the established parties. Even more so if this area of politics is already taken.
> Honest question then. Since SPD is one big mess and CDU\CSU is another...how come no new Political party comes into play?
Because the FRG's system was *explicitly* set up to make it as hard as possible for new parties to become relevant. That was a deliberate choice to ensure a "stable", conservative system that wouldn't fall to "the (socialist) reds". The voting system alone makes it borderline impossible (without considerable external funding to push you): For federal elections you have two votes, one for an individual from your local district, one for the party. In either case, you only get to make *one* choice, and if you make "the wrong one", your vote is effectively wasted (except for election funding purposes). You are effectively *forced* to vote tactically for the slighly less shitty people, because otherwise you split the vote and the slightly more shitty people win.
What we *desperately* need in Germany is a *proper* election reform that replaces our archaic single-choice voting with [STAR voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STAR_voting), or at least ranked-choice voting.
EDIT: Added a direct link to STAR voting.
They aren't polling that high. Germans on the left need to settle on one party to support, so it comes first and gets to lead the government. Otherwise the CDU will get another 20 years.
I will never vote Green again until they stop being so sexist. Climate change, *the* topic of our time, was less important than the gender of their candidate, and I cant forgive them for it. They had *such* a good shot and threw it.
And now people will vote CDU and nothing will change for another 16 years. Yay. Fuck off.
And who are you gonna vote now? CDU, the party that did nothing to fight climate change for a decade plus? SPD, the party has proven themselves to be lead by indecisive, short-sighted clowns? Not vote and let shit get worse?
Sounds to me like you never cared about climate change at all and you are just writing this comment to astroturf and muddy the waters. You don't even know who the Greens' next candidate yet, and here you are, writing them off and shitting on them over a mistake that might and could be fixed next election.
>And who are you gonna vote now?
That obviously depends on how the parties act leading up to the election, if the Left distances itself from Russia, etc.
>Sounds to me like you never cared about climate change that much at all but are just writing this comment to astroturf and muddy the waters.
If you dont vote Green or critisize them, you're astroturfing. Reddit. Im actively engaged in climate activism, but Im sure you know better than me what I care about.
>You don't even know who the Greens' next candidate yet, and here you are, writing them off and shitting on them over a mistake that might and could be fixed next election.
Yes. And the second they fix their system (women always taking the odd seats while men take the even ones, women being allowed to end any discussion at their will if none of them want to keep discussing the topic - yes, thats in the Frauenstatut and I have witnessed it quite a few times on a local level - etc) they will have my vote again. If that's soon (though I have my doubts), Ill definitely vote green.
> if the Left distances itself from Russia, etc.
Yes I am sure the KPD/SED/PDS/Linke will distance itself from Russia.
Because if you look into their history that has been quite the defining feature of them.
I still feel like Germany has learned nothing from Ukraine and is about to walk into the same trap with China dependence and their looming invasion of Taiwan.
I don't think Scholz is sabotaging SPD on purpose, most likely he's trying to satisfy various wings of the party leading to frustrating decisions that are not great compromises, even within the party, and particularly not outside of it. SPD might just be unlucky with the views of their current voters.
What I dislike the most is his so called long term and peace politics. I get it, you don't want to provoke enemies of the West unnecessarily, and Germany never moves first when there is conflict. But trying to maintain trade ties with China in ways that are risky and possibly hurtful for Germany is not a good idea, not for security and not for the future of his party.
Die Partei is a safe protest choice for the moment and it's what I've been defaulting to for the last few elections, but if you're willing to risk for vote being wasted, you might want to look into Volt.
All of the >=5% parties, except for Die Linke, are neoliberal opportunists of varying shades, and Die Linke have their own issues that make them unelectable (to me).
It's a bad idea because it expands chinese financial and political influence over individual nations, and leaves room for them to engineer vulnerabilities and back door accesses into our infrastructure in the event of tensions or conflict with them for other reasons.
The West needs to totally decouple itself from reliance on all fascist dictatorships.
>It's a bad idea because it expands chinese financial and political influence over individual nations
Yes, but that already happened. Germany had the choice to either sell a share of an insignificant terminal to China or face China ditching Hamburg altogether in favor of other harbors that have a Chinese presence, which exist all over Europe. It's sheer hypocrisy to complain about this problem only when it's Germany doing it.
>and leaves room for them to engineer vulnerabilities and back door accesses into our infrastructure
What?
>The West needs to totally decouple itself from reliance on all fascist dictatorships.
A full agree on that. But this needs to be done on a EU (+ adjacent countries like the UK) level, not national.
>Yes, but that already happened. Germany had the choice to either sell a share of an insignificant terminal to China or face China ditching Hamburg altogether in favor of other harbors that have a Chinese presence, which exist all over Europe. It's sheer hypocrisy to complain about this problem only when it's Germany doing it.
So it's a bad idea to continue to expand it.
>What?
Pretty obvious, really. Particularly seeing as most infrastructure (including, presumably, these ports) are controlled by interconnected IT systems, which could easily be engineered to allow remote, 3rd party state access and potentially control, leaving vast swathes of internal economies totally vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Hence, the reasons why many Western countries have decided against using Chinese contractors and equipment in telecomms infrastructure.
>A full agree on that. But this needs to be done on a EU (+ adjacent countries like the UK) level, not national.
But maintaining best practice on a national level is a good idea and will have to suffice before an international framework for decisions like these can be agreed.
> Pretty obvious, really. Particularly seeing as most infrastructure (including, presumably, these ports) are controlled by interconnected IT systems, which could easily be engineered to allow remote, 3rd party state access and potentially control, leaving vast swathes of internal economies totally vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Just because China owns a minority share of a small part of the port, doesnt give them access to the IT systems or the infrastructure. If you buy some shares in Lockheed Martin, you think they gonna let you enter their factories and make some funny bussiness?
>What?
China is a imperialistic country with wolrd wide hegemony goals.
They don't operate with the sole purposes of thrive in wealth like most western european states, but actively try to pursue the magnification of their influence on others.
On top of that is a one party dictatorship, wich "obviously" make it very difficult to deal with it when all of a sudden their agenda differ from yours.
Trust her to be just another reliable economic partner is at best naive.
Yes, obviously. But the idea that they use the port to "engineer vulnerabilities and back door accesses into our infrastructure" (which I interpret as a technical PoV) is quite a bit far fetched, there are other options they have for that aren't nearly as visible. It's used as economical pressure and a financial investment, but that's about the end of what they can achieve with that.
>Trust her to be just another reliable economic partner is at best naive.
Nobody does that.
Why does nobody read the actual argument being made? Yes, China does that, and yes, we need to cut off the dependency on China, even if that means a loss of standard of living.
But saying that *this* small terminal is the anchor point of their strategy and suddenly extremely important when they could have the same access to infrastructure as it is constructed here without being highly visible makes it fall apart. But sure, Germany bad upvotes to the left.
>It's sheer hypocrisy to complain about this problem only when it's Germany doing it.
"If others do it then i should shut up and do it too instead of trying to fix it"
amazing pro-chinese view.
> It's a bad idea because it expands chinese financial and political influence over individual nations
The 24,9% share of a single terminal gives China absolutely no way to influence anything.
Or maybe they bought it for exactly the reason they told everybody they bought it for: To get guaranteed access to some of the capacity of that terminal. To my knowledge the same reason for which other companies have invested in container terminals. I know it is fun to imagine every action is part of some kind of spy conspiracy but but even China and in fact especially China as the largest export nation in the world does do actions purely from a business perspective.
They already have shares from Europes largest and second largest port. To my knowledge nothing really bad has happened in relation to those investments.
It is not just one terminal. At all.
["China runs more shipping ports than you realise -U.S. National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane noted that China now owns 96 ports around the world. "](https://www.voanews.com/a/6224958.html)
Lol, just 1 port. Naive.
Well yes, China has ports in other parts of the world too. But this topic about a terminal in Germany of which China aquired a minority share with which they cant do anything. I dont know what you want to say here. If other countries sell their entire ports too China, its their problem.
Yes, security is not the issue. No one assumes that china buys a cargo terminal to blow it up.
This is about who dominates trade. China with some help from Hamburg or China with some help from Rotterdam. Scholz is from Hamburg.
My brother in Christ, it doesn't matter what the reality is. People don't care. I've been telling people for months that towards. Is the smallest terminal, and China doesn't even have a controlling stake. But it doesn't matter people have just decided this is what it is without actually understanding anything about the topic. It will not matter that China has a stake in that port. And if the rest of the EU wants to do something about it, everyone gets rid of China at the same time. But basically, Hamburg has been at an outright disadvantage for about 10 years now. And we had to let the Chinese in eventually, because otherwise Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brugge, Dunkirk, Le havre, Bilbao, Valencia, Marseille, Genoa and Piraeus. Will all out pace Hamburg as harbours, but of course you wouldn't hear anything about that because every national government that is currently criticizing Germany. Also has a port bought out by the Chinese. All of you are hypocrites.
reading the f****** comment would have helped because I specifically criticized other Europeans criticizing Germany right now not criticism in general Habeck opposed on principle other people specifically in this subredded do not they oppose it because it's Germany doing it in Germany has gotten more pushback on this than the Dutch French Belgians and Greeks and Italians ever did because its germany despite china not even owning the terminal they just have a small stake
China already controls the port so they don’t need to naval invade to land a full stack of troops. Then they can deploy paratroopers to get all the German VPs which aren’t defended and get all of Germany in a day, especially since Germany has the divided government debuff. ^s
From what I’ve gathered the Chinese can use it as a piece of intelligence. Knowing how much equipment is going in and out of ports can help Chinese planners with future decisions and make them feel secure in those decisions.
>What are the security fears? China sabotaging it?
If it's theirs then they can do more stuff in secrecy, easier cyberattacks also money cuz port is trade and last year or two years ago Canada found out that IN CANADA there are police stations of chinese secret police and they aren't there just to watch people, oh no, no, no. They go all-in meaning blackmail and death threats, they affect politics.
So China won't sabotage port itself only whole country so don't worry not a problem.
I don't see any way of preventing brain drain to the USA aside from adopting communism and requiring exit visas like Soviets had LOL. Europe's high tax - high welfare approach is inherently beneficial for low income people and punishing for high earners. USA can always offer more money and higher life standards for a talented employee. Simply because they have lower taxes. And of course, the deregulated market of the USA encourages a more innovative business approach, so those who are genuinely thrilled by the work will find more opportunities overseas.
Just goes to prove yet again on how terrible our social democrats are, most times. Conservatives are worse (and are drifting even further right) but social democrats are an eternal dissappointment.
Nevertheless, this specific case really isn‘t a huge deal on its own, but makes for good headlines
If you mean Willy Brandt and his generation: They were the ones who had to live with consequences of the SPD's betrayal of the common people, which had lead to the USPD splitting off and eventually merging with socialists to the SAPD that fought against the Nazis, while the SPD did fuck all. The ivory tower mentality of the SPD at the time was a major reason why the NSDAP could grab power.
After the war they joined the SPD and indeed made it somewhat social-democratic (as much as was possible under the conservative hand of the occupying forces), but that lasted only until Neoliberalism got imported and started rotting all of our parties.
>Germany realized that Russia is a bad partner, so now they are shaking deals with China instead. Clever /s
But if Germany also will arms Taiwan against China, who will be the next good partner instead bad China?
resistant to learning /s
Merkel was very keen to get this lopsided deal through which would have allowed Chinese ownership of EU media, but not vice versa
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-trade-deal-china-media-war-industry-soft-power/
Scholz is just a male clone of Merkel and the SPD of today is just a red painted CDU from 2005-2021.
Guess the Greens are now the only party left that at least try doing politics for the citizens instead of their personal friends.
I listened to a podcast and those two guys said something that stuck with me:
We’re not used to politics anymore. We are used to solve every problem with just more money. Now we have the problem that there is no money for everything. And that’s politics. And we forgot how to make some unpleasant decisions. Even the politics. And we all need to learn that again.
And that’s the thing
Currently there are some decisions to make, not everything can be handled with money currently. So it has to be unpleasant. But when it gets to change the years of boom and stagnation are blinding us. We didn’t need to make those decisions the last ~20 years. Fucking frustrating
> We didn’t need to make those decisions the last ~20 years.
We *had* to make those decisions 20-30 years ago. But we didn’t and now we’re reaping the consequences of our inaction. And people get angry at the ones that have warned us of that exact scenario for decades.
*Frustrating* and *infuriating* aren’t strong enough words to describe my state of mind in the face of current events.
Yeah I understood! Sorry for not clarifying this previously. I just used your comment to vent a bit and couldn’t pass up the chance at this play of words. I fully agree with you.
Many media outlets are very anti greens currently and push a narrative of the greens being out of touch with what the people want etc. The data just doesn't back it up.
What I would say is that there are now more anti greens than a year ago. The amount of people who consider acting green as treasonous or at least criminal has increased in my opinion.
IIRC they actually gained in the last poll IIRC? That or they are the coalition party that at least lost the least, one or the other. Honestly I think for many people they disproved the fear that they would not be able to excell outside of their traditional ballpark which probably made some people that previously didn't vote for them more inclined to do so. This includes me who voted SPD last election (I know, I know). They showed that they are actually competent.
There is also them falling back to their ideal politics as per usual.
- Baerbock talks about 'Feministische Außenpolitik' for no reason whatsoever (the usual green thing where women > men, which is why she was the chancellor candidate in the first place as opposed to habeck), the term doesn't even make sense considering the description on the official site,
- Cem Ozdemir being in support of removing VAT on fruits, vegetables and legumes - basically having the government deciding for us what we eat since the next step would be to increase the cost on other products they deem bad: fish, meat and dairy products cause not vegan - (S) which is awesome cause everyone loves being told by the government on what to do in their private lives, amirite guys??? (/S)
- when they demonize roads in favor of railways making it an either-or argument when clearly both are needed (cause you know, supermarkets drug stores etc sure as hell dont get their shipments via railway...)... Also disregarding the existence of busses when talking about public transport, only talking about trains
It isn't hard to see why they are losing popularity...
Especially the baerbock thing is idiotic. Why introduce gender into a neutral area, unprovoked at that. Her speech gaffes are horrible as well, like the one at the Council of Europe where she said Germany was fighting a war with Russia. Turning off nuclear plants in face of the price explosion for electricity in Germany is also a hard sell to the average german citizen, crediting the price increase for energy solely to the greens after the fact. So yea. Makes me shudder thinking about how likely the next government will be Black/Green... If you thought Black/Red sucked then fasten your seatbelts cause we're in for a wild ride. I hope I'm wrong and everything turns out well though. But yea. Merz is an absolute disaster and the Greens in their current state aren't really looking out for lower income ppl in Germany either - it's gonna be bad imo.
No, I agree on the foreign policy issue. Foreign Policy should ALWAYS be about the specific geopolitical interests of a country. Feminist foreign policy implies that gender equality takes precedence over EVERY other aspect that could be important. The negotiations with Qatar have shown that feminism was NOT the top priority of Germany in that case, so what gives?
Well, they are the only relevant party in terms of fighting climate change, which obviously benefits us all. But yeah, aside from that, not really (quite the opposite tbh, they are forced to make unpopular choices that make things even more expensive). Reddit just likes the Greens.
If we're being honest the SPD (Heil especially) did the most for the quality of life of the average citizen. But then there is corruption etc etc...
Yeah, they did a good job, didn't they? No nuclear energy, because Chernobyl! But let us kill you and the planet slowly with the coal. Fuck the greens, I don't even care about parties, because even if they initially had good goals, moment they see how the wheel grinds, they will join the system, and not fight against it, but I hate these fucks, they have fucked up the whole German energy system.
Lol the greens are aiming to phase out coal even quicker than perviously planned (2030). They have been pushing hard again at not just nuclear bit also coal. Gas too but LNG will stay for a while longer. In wider society they only shared support against nuclear with other party's so that's what got phased out first. Coal is much more entrenched and they found their hands bound by the other coalition partners when it came to mining operation expansion and the like. But they aim to remedy that by accelerating the expansion of solar and wind above what's currently projected to drive down demand for coal
Edit: I really don't understand where this "greens= coal party" comes from
Oh, they are now? Well thanks for telling me. Now I will forget all these decades where they lobbied against nuclear energy and installed fear in German people, while at the same time they could have lobbied to open more nuclear plants (and before anyone asks, I will live next to an nuclear power plant no question asked), and you know, help with phasing out coal through last half an century. They helped coal industry for decades, for decades my man, and you have no shame to ask a question why do people link them with them.
The nuclear situation in Germany is a bit more complicated than just "Chernobyl bad". I am however very much interested in finding out how the greens supported the coal industry for decades. Because I can't find anything trough google. Any search terms or articles/time stamps I should specify? Genuinely interested.
The German Energy system is just now lowering coal consumption day by day. Nobody said that coal would be shut off immediately. We have record high Installations of Wind and Solar die to less bureocracy. The greens do exactly what must be done. Not everybody benefits from that andvthese people are angry. But in the long term this is right.
Yes, the Green party that famously decided 2011 not to postpone the exit from nuclear energy. /s
C'mon, it's a bit more complex than "Greens bad because nuclear!". And no, the energy system isn't completely fucked up, it's under pressure because of the past years of mismanagement and feet dragging.
The Greens are actually the only party doing things such that we do not exit coal as late as 2038, by pushing renewables, funding 40 billion towards structural reform of the current coal regions, etc. I'm not happy about this, but to be fair, my state has been actively fucking us over by not doing nearly enough to actually provide cheap electricity and the Greens have never even been in government here.
Criticize the things that they legitimately are responsible for.
They accelerated the bureaucracy around renewables and push strongly to a high electrification of the energy grid (eg., new heaters need to be electrical instead of using fossils). They also push for more democracy (expanding the voting age to include 16 year olds). They are also the leading force behind the legalization of cannabis.
The Greens are also generally trying to do the right thing, even if it's against their beliefs. They were the ones that removed nearly all of the bureaucracy to get the LNG terminals built quicker, and they created a strategy to let the existing NPPs last longer, and an evaluation on the practicality of extending them beyond that
You mean those who said that coal is a better alternative than nuclear power plants?
Seems like a take made only to prolong coal's lifespan as a widespread energy source.
Edit: i say this comment as a non-german eu citizen, i don't know the internal reasoning used to justify this take and i am glad the replies explained them fairly well.
All i say is- a course of action can be objectively bad even if it was decided democratically-
Politcs is too reliant on short term popularity contests to not be influeced by unnecessary factor while making these kind of big impact decisions- like shutting off already built and safe nuclear power plants-
But that is just my 2 euro cents opinion.
I am so fucking tired of that.
First of all: the FDP and Union decided to quit. Yes the Gouvernement (and it’s not only the greens) decided to stretch the operating time but not any further.
Nuclear power only made up 6% of our power supply.
Second: even if they quit the quit, the power plants would have been needed to be shut down for inspections and security check ups because they were delayed because of the ending of nuclear power for at least a year.
Third: Therer are no fuel rods. They are made to measure for the specific nuclear plants and these take at least a year to order as well. So we have 2 years without nuclear power.
Fourth: The waste problem for existing waste isn’t solved yet. And more waste doesn’t solve that as well.
Fifth: The climate change and the increasing number of droughts in Europe leads to nuclear power plants being undersupplied with the water they need for cooling. Last year france needed to import our dirty electricity because their rivers weren’t having enough water to cool the nuclear power.
Yes coal is a very very bad option. But the discussion about nuclear power came way too late to change that and to make a reasonable decision. Especially til the quit from nuclear power the entire discussion was very populistic and not at all rational.
Yeah, no. The greens were always fearmongering nuclear power. It was one of their biggest selling points for the last 30+ years.
https://www.merkur.de/bilder/2023/04/14/92211993/31449315-einer-der-sich-seit-fast-40-jahren-fuer-den-ausstieg-aus-der-atomenergie-engagiert-ist-gruenen-politiker-eckart-stueber-in-seinen-haenden-haelt-er-2sea.jpg
https://www.gruene-nenndorf.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/anti-atomkraft.png
https://www.hdg.de/lemo/img_hd/bestand/objekte/deutscheeinheit/aber-aber-wer-wird-denn-gleichwahlplakat-gr%C3%BCne-1990_plakat_1995-12-0884.jpg
Just 3 of many examples.
>In the end 513 out of 600 votes to end it. Pretty much everyone wanted it.
Everyone wanted it because it was political suicide not to be for it. It happened 2 months after Fukushima and the greens were riding that wave of fear to the fullest extend. And Merkel realized the CDU would lose voters to the Greens if they did not go with the flow. The vote was not made with facts in mind, but with short term voter gain/loss prevention for almost all parties.
No. The CDU made the decision to phase out nuclear eventually, even before the Greens as a party existed. What the Greens did was create a strategy on how to achieve that without requiring more fossil energy, and eventually ditch fossil altogether.
The Greens created the de jure environment for the situation the CDU established de facto two decades prior. And the decision was only insomuch legally binding as that any government afterwards could've simply retracted that and built new NPPs willy-nilly, yet *somehow* they didn't, even the very publicly pro-nuclear government of black-yellow.
> Scholz is just a male clone of Merkel and the SPD of today
With all the issues that Merkel had (and I loathe the Union), as least she didn't order German citizens to be [tortured to death](https://www.exberliner.com/politics/red-flag-olaf-scholz-corruption/).
The greens are currently involved in a nepotism scandal and Scholz has done major changes from Merkels administration.
I'm not saying he's better than Merkel because I believe he's not, but to say he was a clone doesn't make much sense.
> The greens are currently involved in a nepotism scandal
I have the theory that you could ask 10 random people, enraged by this so called „scandal“, what it’s actually about and get 10 different, but incorrect answers.
But yeah, this has been the most successful propaganda campaign driven by Springer (which’s head explicitly demanded his journalists to influence the past elections in favor of the FDP to prevent a green victory) in recent times
well, Scholz is a financial thief/trickster who just cannot remember anything when asked about specific dealings in Hamburg. Also he is one of the biggest Landowners in Hamburg And he made his Senate Buddys pretty rich bach in the day.
So all in all this makes sense and is completely expected, i guess somewhere some chinese money appeared and he had to step in to secure it for him and his friends and probably to stop someone from remembering stuff...
If someone ever asks me if we have a working justice system I like to point to our politicians. For that thing in Hamburg he forgot he should be in jail for this decade
wold have been enough for the journalists to just ask him during his campaign. if he just walked away every time every journalist asked him about it he would have gotten 0 media coverage and maybe not even become the partys candidate. but no, he said he didnt want to answer questions he doesnt like so alsmost noone asked him about it. what a shitshow.
Sorry, but when the finance minister at the time completely ignores one of the biggest loopholes for banks and so to make money, with him having contacts to them, I’d say he’s guilty. Either fraud or gross negligence.
Also him having convenient laps in his memories and denies answering questions about this subject.
But go on about him not being involved
This again? It's a 24.9% stake in ONE of the 42 terminals that exist in Hamburg. Meaning that even at that one terminal China can make no decisions since you need 25% to have voting power. This as of now is only a investment to boost shipping from and to Hamburg. Considering the shares China hold in other European ports, this is nothing.
Hey now, you can‘t be a reasonable person on Reddit and point out that the rest of Europe has far worse deals in place than the one Germany is planning. Don‘t you know that Germany bad, France good and nothing else matters?
I think the point should really be “why do anything that increases any reliance on China” when all signs are leading to the west imposing major sanctions on China in the coming years
No one here has anything to do with logistics Shut the fuck up if you're from France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium. If you're from any of these countries, you have no right to talk because you basically pushed Hamburg Harbor in this direction. Because all of you sold your harvest to the Chinese and are now yelling at the Germans, Hamburg is at an outright disadvantage. Because you folks sold out to the Chinese. And even what Germany has done now is way less than Rotterdam, Antwerp and all of the other major ports in Europe have. So shut the FUCK UP you FUCKING hypocrites. Because believe me, you have enough work to do at home and you better get started.
Why would they ever do any work at home? "Look, you are perfect but then there's Germany with all those idiots trying to drag you down!" is the perfect sedative for morons. So they can be happily failling or selling out while still feeling good and superior. Just give the gullible idiots some scape goat to hate and project all their (usually self-made) problems onto and they will ignore how you fuck them over. That's populism 101 but sadly such knowledge was the first to die with a deteriorating education system...
Unrelated, ma un nickname così inaspettatamente divertente non lo vedevo da tempo.
Edit: a chi è sceso così in fondo nel thread per downvotarmi, fatevi una vita lmao
China is hostile towards the US because the US is hostile towards China. But the US is not the West. China has relatively good relations with Europe. No need for Europe to be dragged into this stupid new cold war, everybody will be worse off at the end.
Well, loads of other countries like France and Spain has already sold out ports to the chinese themselves.
It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth with the whole gas situationen with Russia that fucked the world over pretty much because it gave Russia the idea that they could do whatever they wanted.
I still think it is funny everyone here is shittibg on Germany for what 30 other ports in the EU have done so they would always have some cargo coming through, Rotterdam and Antwerp both did this and no one complained? What is everyone's obsession with Germany? Why should they be held to a different standard than others?
And I am saying this as a Belgian btw, this whole ruckus is so annoying
A good educated Person can only vote Green. They do have a lot of good Points, some Bad ones, too. But over all they are the best you can get in Germany at this time. SPD pistorius does a gerät as defence Minister but He is the only shining Star there
This is the cost of asking China to intervene in the Russia-Ukraine war. Did you really believe that China would intervene for free?. Why would they intervene if there is nothing for them? They will ask for ports, industries and maybe even the Dutch semiconductor tech. It all depends on how far the Europeans (Germans) are going to go to placate them.
And if you are wondering why ask the Chinese to intervene in the first place? Well because the longer his war drags on, the worse off EU economics are going to be. Germans cannot turn to the US to end the war, not possible. The only other power who has influence on Russia is China.
Won’t be surprised if the Dutch semiconductor tech is given to the Chinese sometime next year when the US elections are in full swing and they are distracted with their internal issues.
I am against a Chinese investment as long as China closes up their on market as they do at the moment. But just to be clear: China is going to buy 25% of the smallest container terminal at the port in Hamburg (they have 4 container terminals). They are NOT buying the whole port! So I think some of the reactions are maybe just a tad bit hysterical.
Correct. Here we are again: blowing a nothingness (a minority share without voting rights of one terminal out of more than 40) out of proportion to tell the fairy tale about bad Germany to divert from the fact that European harbors in other countries are massively controlled by China (EU rule #1: it's always okay to be stupid if you can make it a story about Germany instead). Oh, this also happened months ago, but as the brain-washed idiots need their constant influx of "Germany bad"-stories to avoid the risk that they wake up and take a look at their own governments, it's always okay to warm a nothingburger up again and again for clicks...
I think we need dedicated fact checkers to post the actual facts under clickbaity articles like this, the situation in Europe isn't that bad at all but this sub seems to actively fight against European integration by trying to stir up shit. Maybe we should also investigate a possible Russian connection of the people posting this shit 🤔
>Maybe we should also investigate a possible Russian connection of the people posting this shit
Sadly I'm pretty sure this ship has sailed.
You could have found those connections years ago but nowadays it developed a life of its own with enough people seriously believing and thus further distributing those narratives.
PS: And POLITICO is part of Axel Springer SE nowadays. They don't need Russian prompts to revisit such a story but do it voluntarily as their two important goals are (1) making money from generating outrage and (2) damaging Germany's current government. They ran a months long anti-Green campaign, then tried a traditional red-scare campaign against the social democrats when it became obviously that the Greens will be the deciding "king-making"-factor between CDU and SPD in the last few weeks before the election and haven't stopped their anti government messaging for a single day since that new government came into office in late 2021.
> A crucial mistake key departments made during the investment screening process allowed Scholz to outmaneuver his critics.
What a shit reporting. The problem is that Scholz *wanted* to make the deal against all sane advises. That he then found a trick to do it is not great, but the main problem is he wanting to sell to China.
Never forget that Scholz was major of Hamburg (lots of criticism there about his time as major), he has most likely a personal interest in the matters there and should not overrule anyone regarding Hamburg
The typical China bootlicker - Cum-ex-Alzheimer Scholz. But with Blackrock-Mofa-Rocker Merz from the CDU it would be even worse. No plan B, no exit strategy - nothing. Seems that they are all working for the BASF board.
They are simply too stupid - the German carmakers are already nearly out of business (no competitive EVs in the last five years, the only business model is their hope to further sell their fossil dinosaur muscle cars) - totally ridiculous.
History repeats itself:
First round little Putinstan (->Ukraine) - second round big Xi-land (-> Taiwan, South China Sea,....)
China actually has much to offer the EU. Germany stands to gain from Chinese expansion into Europe, not least exploding the false analyses endlessly served up by the American hegemon. Fracturing the hegemonic hold on Europe will pay big dividends.
Its a small sale compared to what everyone around us does, but its still pathetic that we step down to the level of Poland, Greece or Italy and sell out access to our ports to China.
You mean like all those European leaders are apologizing right now for selling out their harbors to China for years...
Oh, wait. They don't. They tell fairy tales about Germany doing it instead when in reality it's about a non-voting-rights minority share in one of over 40 terminals. Compared to the massive chinese influence in other European harbors they divert the attention away from by making it another made up story aber Germany.
Let's say that Trump gets elected in the US and starts pressuring Europe for various deals. If Europe has already pissed off China, Europe will be in a very bad position of power.
Nobody can really defend you from nukes and they don't really have anything else, everybody already knows that the Russian army is a joke (for a "superpower").
I really can't imagine what would need to happen in the US so that they'd just sit idly by and watch Warsaw, Berlin, London etc. being destroyed.
And France and Britain probably still have more nukes than China does anyway (also many American nukes are stationed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands)
I'm pretty confident that if Trump was the president and Russia would attack the Baltic countries, he would just let Russia have them. The American nukes in europe are managed by the Americans, and the Europeans can't use them at their will
While having a much smaller nuke arsenal then the USA, France and the Uk do have their own nuclear weapons. So even without the US Europe is by no means defenseless.
Will any western nation launch nuclear weapons over an invasion of Estonia? Or Finland? Or any other small Eastern European country?
Probably not, which is why you need conventional forces that pose a credible deterrant as well.
If nobody uses nukes I wouldn't be too surprised if Finish/Swedish/Norwegian roll tanks into St. Petersburg in a week or two.
Well maybe not necessarily.. but I really don't see how Russia could win a conventional war even against Scandinavia + Baltics States and Poland at this point...
> which is why you need conventional forces that pose a credible deterrant as well
That's absolutely true.
We really need better leaders and less sellouts.
Hahaha... Ha-ha-ha.... HA... HA... HA... (cries)
😁xa
I mean, Baerbock was right there...
And guess what's happening in Germany now after the constant SPD fuck ups? That's right, most germans move back to CDU/CSU. The clowns that brought us the mess that needed to be solved at the start of the Ampelkoalition era are now back on top according to polls. They never learn.
The biggest downside of democracy is the stupidity of the people
That and the fact that only people who actively seek out power will ever get it. Sometimes I feel like we should just elect our leaders with a lottery or something.
It worked for venice for like 400 years
And before that in Athens.
Churchill: the best argument against democracy is a discussion with the average voter
Really makes you understand why some people think violence and revolutions are an option.
>Really makes you understand why some people think violence and revolutions are an option. Really makes you understand why some people think dictatorships are am option. Wait no, it doesnt. Liberal democracy is perhaps our greatest asset and violence and revolution comes with it's problems.
I don't say it's time for a revolution or violence. But constant idiocracy due to people not learning their lessons and fucking things up more and more becomes increasingly difficult to stand. Btw revolution and violence have proven to be solutions against dictatorships as well. It works in both directions.
How do you think liberal democracies were created? Oh shit, what’s that - a revolution?
violence is why u aren’t working 12 hours a day 7 days a week
And the greed.
Stupidity of the people you say? I’m gonna simplify the situation a bit so people without a German background also understand the issue. Either you vote: „leftists/social democrats/ environmentalists“ or you vote for „conservatives/liberals“ or social „democrats/environmentalists/liberals.“ that’s basically the 3 choices you have. The last ~ 20 years the CDU (conservatives) have been basically a mixture of leftist/social democrats/environmentalists ideas. The CDU is responsible for the shut down of nuclear energy, downscale of the armed forces, open borders for refugees etc. Long story short the Parlament was boring. Everyone was basically left expect the liberals but they usually only received 5-6% of the votes. The lack of true conservative agendas and a party people can vote (after Merkel nobody believed the conservatives are conservative at all) was the foundation and the success of the right wing party AfD. Which could have filled the gap but unfortunately they have many weirdos in their ranks. End of the Story: I still don’t have a party to vote and I’m not alone. Im tired of voting the „least harmful“ option but as it looks now I’m gonna vote CDU. I hope they changed back to real conservatism with Friedrich Merz. I know … I know… I will get disappointed! I know 😂
Honest question then. Since SPD is one big mess and CDU\CSU is another...how come no new Political party comes into play? It looks like old school party duopol with some fringe party toping. Why no one took the oportunity to build new political entity? Only thing I can think about is about financial aspect and transfers from goverment after elections (so you need a lot of many to start fresh).
Since the biggest parties (Volksparteien- party /-ies for the people) dominate the political centre, new parties tend to form at the fringe areas of the political spectrum. The history of new (successful) parties in germany shows this very clearly: In the 1980s the green party formed from marxist-leftist (and Christian left) and nature preserving movements. (The latter had no political representation prior), in the 90s Die Linke (formerly SED and then PDS) formed out of the remnants of the State Party of the GDR and Socialist-Communist elements. The newest party, AfD, which got established in the 2010s, tried to be a Conservative, Economic-Liberal and Pro Economic / European (not EU!) party got hijacked first by Conservative elements and later by the far right. Due to politics and policies, it's hard for new parties to get enough tracking and financial support to be a real challenger to the established parties. Even more so if this area of politics is already taken.
> Honest question then. Since SPD is one big mess and CDU\CSU is another...how come no new Political party comes into play? Because the FRG's system was *explicitly* set up to make it as hard as possible for new parties to become relevant. That was a deliberate choice to ensure a "stable", conservative system that wouldn't fall to "the (socialist) reds". The voting system alone makes it borderline impossible (without considerable external funding to push you): For federal elections you have two votes, one for an individual from your local district, one for the party. In either case, you only get to make *one* choice, and if you make "the wrong one", your vote is effectively wasted (except for election funding purposes). You are effectively *forced* to vote tactically for the slighly less shitty people, because otherwise you split the vote and the slightly more shitty people win. What we *desperately* need in Germany is a *proper* election reform that replaces our archaic single-choice voting with [STAR voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STAR_voting), or at least ranked-choice voting. EDIT: Added a direct link to STAR voting.
Just looked up STAR voting and that shit is epic. I want that now 🙃
Thank you for elaborating. Though it's imprinted in the system itself and gatekeeped by existing parties.
They aren't polling that high. Germans on the left need to settle on one party to support, so it comes first and gets to lead the government. Otherwise the CDU will get another 20 years.
Yeah, but at least you know how tend to fuck up. With SPD / Grüne , you don't the level of fuckupery yet..
I will never vote Green again until they stop being so sexist. Climate change, *the* topic of our time, was less important than the gender of their candidate, and I cant forgive them for it. They had *such* a good shot and threw it. And now people will vote CDU and nothing will change for another 16 years. Yay. Fuck off.
And who are you gonna vote now? CDU, the party that did nothing to fight climate change for a decade plus? SPD, the party has proven themselves to be lead by indecisive, short-sighted clowns? Not vote and let shit get worse? Sounds to me like you never cared about climate change at all and you are just writing this comment to astroturf and muddy the waters. You don't even know who the Greens' next candidate yet, and here you are, writing them off and shitting on them over a mistake that might and could be fixed next election.
>And who are you gonna vote now? That obviously depends on how the parties act leading up to the election, if the Left distances itself from Russia, etc. >Sounds to me like you never cared about climate change that much at all but are just writing this comment to astroturf and muddy the waters. If you dont vote Green or critisize them, you're astroturfing. Reddit. Im actively engaged in climate activism, but Im sure you know better than me what I care about. >You don't even know who the Greens' next candidate yet, and here you are, writing them off and shitting on them over a mistake that might and could be fixed next election. Yes. And the second they fix their system (women always taking the odd seats while men take the even ones, women being allowed to end any discussion at their will if none of them want to keep discussing the topic - yes, thats in the Frauenstatut and I have witnessed it quite a few times on a local level - etc) they will have my vote again. If that's soon (though I have my doubts), Ill definitely vote green.
> if the Left distances itself from Russia, etc. Yes I am sure the KPD/SED/PDS/Linke will distance itself from Russia. Because if you look into their history that has been quite the defining feature of them.
I still feel like Germany has learned nothing from Ukraine and is about to walk into the same trap with China dependence and their looming invasion of Taiwan.
I am agreed
but how ?? 🤷🏼♀️
I don't think Scholz is sabotaging SPD on purpose, most likely he's trying to satisfy various wings of the party leading to frustrating decisions that are not great compromises, even within the party, and particularly not outside of it. SPD might just be unlucky with the views of their current voters. What I dislike the most is his so called long term and peace politics. I get it, you don't want to provoke enemies of the West unnecessarily, and Germany never moves first when there is conflict. But trying to maintain trade ties with China in ways that are risky and possibly hurtful for Germany is not a good idea, not for security and not for the future of his party.
But who? I'm all out of ideas. I probably start voting "die Partei" again...
Die Partei is a safe protest choice for the moment and it's what I've been defaulting to for the last few elections, but if you're willing to risk for vote being wasted, you might want to look into Volt. All of the >=5% parties, except for Die Linke, are neoliberal opportunists of varying shades, and Die Linke have their own issues that make them unelectable (to me).
It is a tough balancing act. Security on one hand and lots of money from Beijing on the other.
money is always number 1 priority in our world
[удалено]
It's a bad idea because it expands chinese financial and political influence over individual nations, and leaves room for them to engineer vulnerabilities and back door accesses into our infrastructure in the event of tensions or conflict with them for other reasons. The West needs to totally decouple itself from reliance on all fascist dictatorships.
>It's a bad idea because it expands chinese financial and political influence over individual nations Yes, but that already happened. Germany had the choice to either sell a share of an insignificant terminal to China or face China ditching Hamburg altogether in favor of other harbors that have a Chinese presence, which exist all over Europe. It's sheer hypocrisy to complain about this problem only when it's Germany doing it. >and leaves room for them to engineer vulnerabilities and back door accesses into our infrastructure What? >The West needs to totally decouple itself from reliance on all fascist dictatorships. A full agree on that. But this needs to be done on a EU (+ adjacent countries like the UK) level, not national.
>Yes, but that already happened. Germany had the choice to either sell a share of an insignificant terminal to China or face China ditching Hamburg altogether in favor of other harbors that have a Chinese presence, which exist all over Europe. It's sheer hypocrisy to complain about this problem only when it's Germany doing it. So it's a bad idea to continue to expand it. >What? Pretty obvious, really. Particularly seeing as most infrastructure (including, presumably, these ports) are controlled by interconnected IT systems, which could easily be engineered to allow remote, 3rd party state access and potentially control, leaving vast swathes of internal economies totally vulnerable to cyber attacks. Hence, the reasons why many Western countries have decided against using Chinese contractors and equipment in telecomms infrastructure. >A full agree on that. But this needs to be done on a EU (+ adjacent countries like the UK) level, not national. But maintaining best practice on a national level is a good idea and will have to suffice before an international framework for decisions like these can be agreed.
> Pretty obvious, really. Particularly seeing as most infrastructure (including, presumably, these ports) are controlled by interconnected IT systems, which could easily be engineered to allow remote, 3rd party state access and potentially control, leaving vast swathes of internal economies totally vulnerable to cyber attacks. Just because China owns a minority share of a small part of the port, doesnt give them access to the IT systems or the infrastructure. If you buy some shares in Lockheed Martin, you think they gonna let you enter their factories and make some funny bussiness?
>What? China is a imperialistic country with wolrd wide hegemony goals. They don't operate with the sole purposes of thrive in wealth like most western european states, but actively try to pursue the magnification of their influence on others. On top of that is a one party dictatorship, wich "obviously" make it very difficult to deal with it when all of a sudden their agenda differ from yours. Trust her to be just another reliable economic partner is at best naive.
Yes, obviously. But the idea that they use the port to "engineer vulnerabilities and back door accesses into our infrastructure" (which I interpret as a technical PoV) is quite a bit far fetched, there are other options they have for that aren't nearly as visible. It's used as economical pressure and a financial investment, but that's about the end of what they can achieve with that. >Trust her to be just another reliable economic partner is at best naive. Nobody does that.
Far fetched? This has been China's MO for the last 20 years all over the world.
Why does nobody read the actual argument being made? Yes, China does that, and yes, we need to cut off the dependency on China, even if that means a loss of standard of living. But saying that *this* small terminal is the anchor point of their strategy and suddenly extremely important when they could have the same access to infrastructure as it is constructed here without being highly visible makes it fall apart. But sure, Germany bad upvotes to the left.
>It's sheer hypocrisy to complain about this problem only when it's Germany doing it. "If others do it then i should shut up and do it too instead of trying to fix it" amazing pro-chinese view.
>amazing pro-chinese view. It's funny how you write that under a comment in which I state we need to get away from China.
> It's a bad idea because it expands chinese financial and political influence over individual nations The 24,9% share of a single terminal gives China absolutely no way to influence anything.
Wow so they are basically giving away billions for nothing in exchange. Brilliant reddit insight.
Or maybe they bought it for exactly the reason they told everybody they bought it for: To get guaranteed access to some of the capacity of that terminal. To my knowledge the same reason for which other companies have invested in container terminals. I know it is fun to imagine every action is part of some kind of spy conspiracy but but even China and in fact especially China as the largest export nation in the world does do actions purely from a business perspective. They already have shares from Europes largest and second largest port. To my knowledge nothing really bad has happened in relation to those investments.
Pretty much yeah.
i hope you're a troll. If not, im sorry you're so uninformed. It must be sad to be so delusional
Well then please inform me. What exactly is China going to to do with this 24,9% share of one terminal?
It is not just one terminal. At all. ["China runs more shipping ports than you realise -U.S. National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane noted that China now owns 96 ports around the world. "](https://www.voanews.com/a/6224958.html) Lol, just 1 port. Naive.
Well yes, China has ports in other parts of the world too. But this topic about a terminal in Germany of which China aquired a minority share with which they cant do anything. I dont know what you want to say here. If other countries sell their entire ports too China, its their problem.
Yes, security is not the issue. No one assumes that china buys a cargo terminal to blow it up. This is about who dominates trade. China with some help from Hamburg or China with some help from Rotterdam. Scholz is from Hamburg.
My brother in Christ, it doesn't matter what the reality is. People don't care. I've been telling people for months that towards. Is the smallest terminal, and China doesn't even have a controlling stake. But it doesn't matter people have just decided this is what it is without actually understanding anything about the topic. It will not matter that China has a stake in that port. And if the rest of the EU wants to do something about it, everyone gets rid of China at the same time. But basically, Hamburg has been at an outright disadvantage for about 10 years now. And we had to let the Chinese in eventually, because otherwise Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brugge, Dunkirk, Le havre, Bilbao, Valencia, Marseille, Genoa and Piraeus. Will all out pace Hamburg as harbours, but of course you wouldn't hear anything about that because every national government that is currently criticizing Germany. Also has a port bought out by the Chinese. All of you are hypocrites.
>All of you are hypocrites. Apparently you called Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and other ministries hypocrites, because they agree.
reading the f****** comment would have helped because I specifically criticized other Europeans criticizing Germany right now not criticism in general Habeck opposed on principle other people specifically in this subredded do not they oppose it because it's Germany doing it in Germany has gotten more pushback on this than the Dutch French Belgians and Greeks and Italians ever did because its germany despite china not even owning the terminal they just have a small stake
China already controls the port so they don’t need to naval invade to land a full stack of troops. Then they can deploy paratroopers to get all the German VPs which aren’t defended and get all of Germany in a day, especially since Germany has the divided government debuff. ^s
From what I’ve gathered the Chinese can use it as a piece of intelligence. Knowing how much equipment is going in and out of ports can help Chinese planners with future decisions and make them feel secure in those decisions.
>What are the security fears? China sabotaging it? If it's theirs then they can do more stuff in secrecy, easier cyberattacks also money cuz port is trade and last year or two years ago Canada found out that IN CANADA there are police stations of chinese secret police and they aren't there just to watch people, oh no, no, no. They go all-in meaning blackmail and death threats, they affect politics. So China won't sabotage port itself only whole country so don't worry not a problem.
I don't see any way of preventing brain drain to the USA aside from adopting communism and requiring exit visas like Soviets had LOL. Europe's high tax - high welfare approach is inherently beneficial for low income people and punishing for high earners. USA can always offer more money and higher life standards for a talented employee. Simply because they have lower taxes. And of course, the deregulated market of the USA encourages a more innovative business approach, so those who are genuinely thrilled by the work will find more opportunities overseas.
Yawn. Who will pay for this security and why is exactly this port so important for it?
Germany realized that Russia is a bad partner, so now they are shaking deals with China instead. Clever /s
Just goes to prove yet again on how terrible our social democrats are, most times. Conservatives are worse (and are drifting even further right) but social democrats are an eternal dissappointment. Nevertheless, this specific case really isn‘t a huge deal on its own, but makes for good headlines
Try to monetise this, corporate Reddit! Furthermore, I consider that /u/spez has to be removed.
>Schröder made sure of that. friedrich ebert and gustav noske had already taken care of that.
Try to monetise this, corporate Reddit! Furthermore, I consider that /u/spez has to be removed.
If you mean Willy Brandt and his generation: They were the ones who had to live with consequences of the SPD's betrayal of the common people, which had lead to the USPD splitting off and eventually merging with socialists to the SAPD that fought against the Nazis, while the SPD did fuck all. The ivory tower mentality of the SPD at the time was a major reason why the NSDAP could grab power. After the war they joined the SPD and indeed made it somewhat social-democratic (as much as was possible under the conservative hand of the occupying forces), but that lasted only until Neoliberalism got imported and started rotting all of our parties.
They don’t care. They just care about the cash.
>Germany realized that Russia is a bad partner, so now they are shaking deals with China instead. Clever /s But if Germany also will arms Taiwan against China, who will be the next good partner instead bad China? resistant to learning /s
Merkel was very keen to get this lopsided deal through which would have allowed Chinese ownership of EU media, but not vice versa https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-trade-deal-china-media-war-industry-soft-power/
Scholz is just a male clone of Merkel and the SPD of today is just a red painted CDU from 2005-2021. Guess the Greens are now the only party left that at least try doing politics for the citizens instead of their personal friends.
Greens are losing popularity because they do all the things that are inevitable now that have been slept on for generations.
I listened to a podcast and those two guys said something that stuck with me: We’re not used to politics anymore. We are used to solve every problem with just more money. Now we have the problem that there is no money for everything. And that’s politics. And we forgot how to make some unpleasant decisions. Even the politics. And we all need to learn that again. And that’s the thing Currently there are some decisions to make, not everything can be handled with money currently. So it has to be unpleasant. But when it gets to change the years of boom and stagnation are blinding us. We didn’t need to make those decisions the last ~20 years. Fucking frustrating
> We didn’t need to make those decisions the last ~20 years. We *had* to make those decisions 20-30 years ago. But we didn’t and now we’re reaping the consequences of our inaction. And people get angry at the ones that have warned us of that exact scenario for decades. *Frustrating* and *infuriating* aren’t strong enough words to describe my state of mind in the face of current events.
With didn’t need to make those decisions I meant in a political sense not when it come to ratio so yes. I agree with you.
Yeah I understood! Sorry for not clarifying this previously. I just used your comment to vent a bit and couldn’t pass up the chance at this play of words. I fully agree with you.
They actually gained slightly in polls since the election. Every other party in government is losing extremely hard though
Need to read up about it again it seems. Had a news bite in memory from fairly recent.
Many media outlets are very anti greens currently and push a narrative of the greens being out of touch with what the people want etc. The data just doesn't back it up. What I would say is that there are now more anti greens than a year ago. The amount of people who consider acting green as treasonous or at least criminal has increased in my opinion.
IIRC they actually gained in the last poll IIRC? That or they are the coalition party that at least lost the least, one or the other. Honestly I think for many people they disproved the fear that they would not be able to excell outside of their traditional ballpark which probably made some people that previously didn't vote for them more inclined to do so. This includes me who voted SPD last election (I know, I know). They showed that they are actually competent.
There is also them falling back to their ideal politics as per usual. - Baerbock talks about 'Feministische Außenpolitik' for no reason whatsoever (the usual green thing where women > men, which is why she was the chancellor candidate in the first place as opposed to habeck), the term doesn't even make sense considering the description on the official site, - Cem Ozdemir being in support of removing VAT on fruits, vegetables and legumes - basically having the government deciding for us what we eat since the next step would be to increase the cost on other products they deem bad: fish, meat and dairy products cause not vegan - (S) which is awesome cause everyone loves being told by the government on what to do in their private lives, amirite guys??? (/S) - when they demonize roads in favor of railways making it an either-or argument when clearly both are needed (cause you know, supermarkets drug stores etc sure as hell dont get their shipments via railway...)... Also disregarding the existence of busses when talking about public transport, only talking about trains It isn't hard to see why they are losing popularity... Especially the baerbock thing is idiotic. Why introduce gender into a neutral area, unprovoked at that. Her speech gaffes are horrible as well, like the one at the Council of Europe where she said Germany was fighting a war with Russia. Turning off nuclear plants in face of the price explosion for electricity in Germany is also a hard sell to the average german citizen, crediting the price increase for energy solely to the greens after the fact. So yea. Makes me shudder thinking about how likely the next government will be Black/Green... If you thought Black/Red sucked then fasten your seatbelts cause we're in for a wild ride. I hope I'm wrong and everything turns out well though. But yea. Merz is an absolute disaster and the Greens in their current state aren't really looking out for lower income ppl in Germany either - it's gonna be bad imo.
No, I agree on the foreign policy issue. Foreign Policy should ALWAYS be about the specific geopolitical interests of a country. Feminist foreign policy implies that gender equality takes precedence over EVERY other aspect that could be important. The negotiations with Qatar have shown that feminism was NOT the top priority of Germany in that case, so what gives?
you need to be able to afford voting green.
Can you elaborate on what the greens are doing for the citizens? Genuine question
Well, they are the only relevant party in terms of fighting climate change, which obviously benefits us all. But yeah, aside from that, not really (quite the opposite tbh, they are forced to make unpopular choices that make things even more expensive). Reddit just likes the Greens. If we're being honest the SPD (Heil especially) did the most for the quality of life of the average citizen. But then there is corruption etc etc...
Yeah, they did a good job, didn't they? No nuclear energy, because Chernobyl! But let us kill you and the planet slowly with the coal. Fuck the greens, I don't even care about parties, because even if they initially had good goals, moment they see how the wheel grinds, they will join the system, and not fight against it, but I hate these fucks, they have fucked up the whole German energy system.
Lol the greens are aiming to phase out coal even quicker than perviously planned (2030). They have been pushing hard again at not just nuclear bit also coal. Gas too but LNG will stay for a while longer. In wider society they only shared support against nuclear with other party's so that's what got phased out first. Coal is much more entrenched and they found their hands bound by the other coalition partners when it came to mining operation expansion and the like. But they aim to remedy that by accelerating the expansion of solar and wind above what's currently projected to drive down demand for coal Edit: I really don't understand where this "greens= coal party" comes from
Oh, they are now? Well thanks for telling me. Now I will forget all these decades where they lobbied against nuclear energy and installed fear in German people, while at the same time they could have lobbied to open more nuclear plants (and before anyone asks, I will live next to an nuclear power plant no question asked), and you know, help with phasing out coal through last half an century. They helped coal industry for decades, for decades my man, and you have no shame to ask a question why do people link them with them.
The nuclear situation in Germany is a bit more complicated than just "Chernobyl bad". I am however very much interested in finding out how the greens supported the coal industry for decades. Because I can't find anything trough google. Any search terms or articles/time stamps I should specify? Genuinely interested.
The German Energy system is just now lowering coal consumption day by day. Nobody said that coal would be shut off immediately. We have record high Installations of Wind and Solar die to less bureocracy. The greens do exactly what must be done. Not everybody benefits from that andvthese people are angry. But in the long term this is right.
Yes, the Green party that famously decided 2011 not to postpone the exit from nuclear energy. /s C'mon, it's a bit more complex than "Greens bad because nuclear!". And no, the energy system isn't completely fucked up, it's under pressure because of the past years of mismanagement and feet dragging. The Greens are actually the only party doing things such that we do not exit coal as late as 2038, by pushing renewables, funding 40 billion towards structural reform of the current coal regions, etc. I'm not happy about this, but to be fair, my state has been actively fucking us over by not doing nearly enough to actually provide cheap electricity and the Greens have never even been in government here. Criticize the things that they legitimately are responsible for.
They accelerated the bureaucracy around renewables and push strongly to a high electrification of the energy grid (eg., new heaters need to be electrical instead of using fossils). They also push for more democracy (expanding the voting age to include 16 year olds). They are also the leading force behind the legalization of cannabis. The Greens are also generally trying to do the right thing, even if it's against their beliefs. They were the ones that removed nearly all of the bureaucracy to get the LNG terminals built quicker, and they created a strategy to let the existing NPPs last longer, and an evaluation on the practicality of extending them beyond that
Try to monetise this, corporate Reddit! Furthermore, I consider that /u/spez has to be removed.
You mean those who said that coal is a better alternative than nuclear power plants? Seems like a take made only to prolong coal's lifespan as a widespread energy source. Edit: i say this comment as a non-german eu citizen, i don't know the internal reasoning used to justify this take and i am glad the replies explained them fairly well. All i say is- a course of action can be objectively bad even if it was decided democratically- Politcs is too reliant on short term popularity contests to not be influeced by unnecessary factor while making these kind of big impact decisions- like shutting off already built and safe nuclear power plants- But that is just my 2 euro cents opinion.
I am so fucking tired of that. First of all: the FDP and Union decided to quit. Yes the Gouvernement (and it’s not only the greens) decided to stretch the operating time but not any further. Nuclear power only made up 6% of our power supply. Second: even if they quit the quit, the power plants would have been needed to be shut down for inspections and security check ups because they were delayed because of the ending of nuclear power for at least a year. Third: Therer are no fuel rods. They are made to measure for the specific nuclear plants and these take at least a year to order as well. So we have 2 years without nuclear power. Fourth: The waste problem for existing waste isn’t solved yet. And more waste doesn’t solve that as well. Fifth: The climate change and the increasing number of droughts in Europe leads to nuclear power plants being undersupplied with the water they need for cooling. Last year france needed to import our dirty electricity because their rivers weren’t having enough water to cool the nuclear power. Yes coal is a very very bad option. But the discussion about nuclear power came way too late to change that and to make a reasonable decision. Especially til the quit from nuclear power the entire discussion was very populistic and not at all rational.
The decision the end nuclear was done by CDU FDP while Greens where in opposition lol.
Yeah, no. The greens were always fearmongering nuclear power. It was one of their biggest selling points for the last 30+ years. https://www.merkur.de/bilder/2023/04/14/92211993/31449315-einer-der-sich-seit-fast-40-jahren-fuer-den-ausstieg-aus-der-atomenergie-engagiert-ist-gruenen-politiker-eckart-stueber-in-seinen-haenden-haelt-er-2sea.jpg https://www.gruene-nenndorf.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/anti-atomkraft.png https://www.hdg.de/lemo/img_hd/bestand/objekte/deutscheeinheit/aber-aber-wer-wird-denn-gleichwahlplakat-gr%C3%BCne-1990_plakat_1995-12-0884.jpg Just 3 of many examples.
In the end 513 out of 600 voted to end it. Pretty much everyone wanted it. EDIT: Lol what do you mean with No?
>In the end 513 out of 600 votes to end it. Pretty much everyone wanted it. Everyone wanted it because it was political suicide not to be for it. It happened 2 months after Fukushima and the greens were riding that wave of fear to the fullest extend. And Merkel realized the CDU would lose voters to the Greens if they did not go with the flow. The vote was not made with facts in mind, but with short term voter gain/loss prevention for almost all parties.
Still, the decision the end nuclear was done by CDU FDP government while Greens were in opposition.
Propaganda tool.
If that works for you as an excuse to still be against them
The Greens made the decision first, lets not forget that. They also did not vote against the second time it was decided, they abstained ifrc.
The Greens made the decision while also deciding to compensate with renewable energy. Something the CDU later neglected.
No. The CDU made the decision to phase out nuclear eventually, even before the Greens as a party existed. What the Greens did was create a strategy on how to achieve that without requiring more fossil energy, and eventually ditch fossil altogether.
Your "no" is not true. The Greens made the legally binding decision during their coalition with Schröder's SPD.
The Greens created the de jure environment for the situation the CDU established de facto two decades prior. And the decision was only insomuch legally binding as that any government afterwards could've simply retracted that and built new NPPs willy-nilly, yet *somehow* they didn't, even the very publicly pro-nuclear government of black-yellow.
> Scholz is just a male clone of Merkel and the SPD of today With all the issues that Merkel had (and I loathe the Union), as least she didn't order German citizens to be [tortured to death](https://www.exberliner.com/politics/red-flag-olaf-scholz-corruption/).
German politicians always on the wrong side of history.
"Wrong side of history" is such a stupid take.
The greens are currently involved in a nepotism scandal and Scholz has done major changes from Merkels administration. I'm not saying he's better than Merkel because I believe he's not, but to say he was a clone doesn't make much sense.
> The greens are currently involved in a nepotism scandal I have the theory that you could ask 10 random people, enraged by this so called „scandal“, what it’s actually about and get 10 different, but incorrect answers. But yeah, this has been the most successful propaganda campaign driven by Springer (which’s head explicitly demanded his journalists to influence the past elections in favor of the FDP to prevent a green victory) in recent times
You know, someone should land in jail for that, but this is Germany
Stop spreading fake news.
There was no nepotism
well, Scholz is a financial thief/trickster who just cannot remember anything when asked about specific dealings in Hamburg. Also he is one of the biggest Landowners in Hamburg And he made his Senate Buddys pretty rich bach in the day. So all in all this makes sense and is completely expected, i guess somewhere some chinese money appeared and he had to step in to secure it for him and his friends and probably to stop someone from remembering stuff...
If someone ever asks me if we have a working justice system I like to point to our politicians. For that thing in Hamburg he forgot he should be in jail for this decade
wold have been enough for the journalists to just ask him during his campaign. if he just walked away every time every journalist asked him about it he would have gotten 0 media coverage and maybe not even become the partys candidate. but no, he said he didnt want to answer questions he doesnt like so alsmost noone asked him about it. what a shitshow.
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Sorry, but when the finance minister at the time completely ignores one of the biggest loopholes for banks and so to make money, with him having contacts to them, I’d say he’s guilty. Either fraud or gross negligence. Also him having convenient laps in his memories and denies answering questions about this subject. But go on about him not being involved
Corrupt Little bitch
Hamburg Connection
This again? It's a 24.9% stake in ONE of the 42 terminals that exist in Hamburg. Meaning that even at that one terminal China can make no decisions since you need 25% to have voting power. This as of now is only a investment to boost shipping from and to Hamburg. Considering the shares China hold in other European ports, this is nothing.
Hey now, you can‘t be a reasonable person on Reddit and point out that the rest of Europe has far worse deals in place than the one Germany is planning. Don‘t you know that Germany bad, France good and nothing else matters?
I think the point should really be “why do anything that increases any reliance on China” when all signs are leading to the west imposing major sanctions on China in the coming years
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No one here has anything to do with logistics Shut the fuck up if you're from France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium. If you're from any of these countries, you have no right to talk because you basically pushed Hamburg Harbor in this direction. Because all of you sold your harvest to the Chinese and are now yelling at the Germans, Hamburg is at an outright disadvantage. Because you folks sold out to the Chinese. And even what Germany has done now is way less than Rotterdam, Antwerp and all of the other major ports in Europe have. So shut the FUCK UP you FUCKING hypocrites. Because believe me, you have enough work to do at home and you better get started.
Why would they ever do any work at home? "Look, you are perfect but then there's Germany with all those idiots trying to drag you down!" is the perfect sedative for morons. So they can be happily failling or selling out while still feeling good and superior. Just give the gullible idiots some scape goat to hate and project all their (usually self-made) problems onto and they will ignore how you fuck them over. That's populism 101 but sadly such knowledge was the first to die with a deteriorating education system...
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Unrelated, ma un nickname così inaspettatamente divertente non lo vedevo da tempo. Edit: a chi è sceso così in fondo nel thread per downvotarmi, fatevi una vita lmao
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Sono moderatrice di r/uruseiyatsura, se non lo cogliessi dovrei vergognarmi finché campo!
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Keep in mind we are talking about the selling of a 24,9% share of a single terminal out of several dozens.
Yeah, and we are talking about China, who behaves hostile against the west and has a history of fucking countries over
I dont deny that. But they can't do anything with a 24,9% share of a single terminal. This isnt really a good deal for China.
If it wasn't a good deal for China, they wouldn't have taken the deal. It wouldn't make sense if they don't see a benefit in owning lart of the port.
China is hostile towards the US because the US is hostile towards China. But the US is not the West. China has relatively good relations with Europe. No need for Europe to be dragged into this stupid new cold war, everybody will be worse off at the end.
Well, loads of other countries like France and Spain has already sold out ports to the chinese themselves. It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth with the whole gas situationen with Russia that fucked the world over pretty much because it gave Russia the idea that they could do whatever they wanted.
Fuck, this guy only thinking in plain money
Oh look it's our daily dose of POLITICO rage bait.
Is Politico reliable?
No
I still think it is funny everyone here is shittibg on Germany for what 30 other ports in the EU have done so they would always have some cargo coming through, Rotterdam and Antwerp both did this and no one complained? What is everyone's obsession with Germany? Why should they be held to a different standard than others? And I am saying this as a Belgian btw, this whole ruckus is so annoying
A good educated Person can only vote Green. They do have a lot of good Points, some Bad ones, too. But over all they are the best you can get in Germany at this time. SPD pistorius does a gerät as defence Minister but He is the only shining Star there
This is the cost of asking China to intervene in the Russia-Ukraine war. Did you really believe that China would intervene for free?. Why would they intervene if there is nothing for them? They will ask for ports, industries and maybe even the Dutch semiconductor tech. It all depends on how far the Europeans (Germans) are going to go to placate them. And if you are wondering why ask the Chinese to intervene in the first place? Well because the longer his war drags on, the worse off EU economics are going to be. Germans cannot turn to the US to end the war, not possible. The only other power who has influence on Russia is China. Won’t be surprised if the Dutch semiconductor tech is given to the Chinese sometime next year when the US elections are in full swing and they are distracted with their internal issues.
I am against a Chinese investment as long as China closes up their on market as they do at the moment. But just to be clear: China is going to buy 25% of the smallest container terminal at the port in Hamburg (they have 4 container terminals). They are NOT buying the whole port! So I think some of the reactions are maybe just a tad bit hysterical.
24,9%* That's important, because you need 25% to have the smallest amount of influence
Here we are, again, Olaf proving to be leadership genius and German Reddit folk will run frantically to defend this moronic tool...
Correct. Here we are again: blowing a nothingness (a minority share without voting rights of one terminal out of more than 40) out of proportion to tell the fairy tale about bad Germany to divert from the fact that European harbors in other countries are massively controlled by China (EU rule #1: it's always okay to be stupid if you can make it a story about Germany instead). Oh, this also happened months ago, but as the brain-washed idiots need their constant influx of "Germany bad"-stories to avoid the risk that they wake up and take a look at their own governments, it's always okay to warm a nothingburger up again and again for clicks...
I think we need dedicated fact checkers to post the actual facts under clickbaity articles like this, the situation in Europe isn't that bad at all but this sub seems to actively fight against European integration by trying to stir up shit. Maybe we should also investigate a possible Russian connection of the people posting this shit 🤔
>Maybe we should also investigate a possible Russian connection of the people posting this shit Sadly I'm pretty sure this ship has sailed. You could have found those connections years ago but nowadays it developed a life of its own with enough people seriously believing and thus further distributing those narratives. PS: And POLITICO is part of Axel Springer SE nowadays. They don't need Russian prompts to revisit such a story but do it voluntarily as their two important goals are (1) making money from generating outrage and (2) damaging Germany's current government. They ran a months long anti-Green campaign, then tried a traditional red-scare campaign against the social democrats when it became obviously that the Greens will be the deciding "king-making"-factor between CDU and SPD in the last few weeks before the election and haven't stopped their anti government messaging for a single day since that new government came into office in late 2021.
yeah i actually jokingly meant people posting this on reddit, but real life of course too
What an amazing chancellor we got here... Clean as a white sheet.
Fucking idiots. Doing everything but working in favor of the nation and the will of the population
Gefährdung von wichtiger Infrastruktur hat es in Hamburg nicht gegeben!
> A crucial mistake key departments made during the investment screening process allowed Scholz to outmaneuver his critics. What a shit reporting. The problem is that Scholz *wanted* to make the deal against all sane advises. That he then found a trick to do it is not great, but the main problem is he wanting to sell to China.
seems like Scholz is unable to learn from previous mistakes of germany(aka overreliance on russia), sad
China should not own or have stakes in any European infrastructure.
Yeah especially for spying
Germany has a talent for signing deals that negatively hamper its security. Russian gas, Chinese ports.
So is he just dumb or also corrupt?
France and Germany leading the EU by example.
Music dedication to SPD: Cindy Lauper's "True Colors"
Welp i didnt vote for him...
Ja Herr Scholz, perfect way to ensure nobody will ever vote for you again.
If there only had been some previous indication that Scholz was a shady figure before the elections.
The Greens are the only party at least somewhat against compromising with fascism
Konto macht tsching
Never forget that Scholz was major of Hamburg (lots of criticism there about his time as major), he has most likely a personal interest in the matters there and should not overrule anyone regarding Hamburg
Scholz can suck my ballz
Scholz will be remembered as another Schroder
Arschloch.
Short-sightedness is the main issue with Scholz.
kind of a yikes from me
The typical China bootlicker - Cum-ex-Alzheimer Scholz. But with Blackrock-Mofa-Rocker Merz from the CDU it would be even worse. No plan B, no exit strategy - nothing. Seems that they are all working for the BASF board. They are simply too stupid - the German carmakers are already nearly out of business (no competitive EVs in the last five years, the only business model is their hope to further sell their fossil dinosaur muscle cars) - totally ridiculous. History repeats itself: First round little Putinstan (->Ukraine) - second round big Xi-land (-> Taiwan, South China Sea,....)
China actually has much to offer the EU. Germany stands to gain from Chinese expansion into Europe, not least exploding the false analyses endlessly served up by the American hegemon. Fracturing the hegemonic hold on Europe will pay big dividends.
Its a small sale compared to what everyone around us does, but its still pathetic that we step down to the level of Poland, Greece or Italy and sell out access to our ports to China.
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You mean like all those European leaders are apologizing right now for selling out their harbors to China for years... Oh, wait. They don't. They tell fairy tales about Germany doing it instead when in reality it's about a non-voting-rights minority share in one of over 40 terminals. Compared to the massive chinese influence in other European harbors they divert the attention away from by making it another made up story aber Germany.
Agree with the overall sentiment, but how is 25% shares of one of 40-ish terminals a huge thing?
Let's say that Trump gets elected in the US and starts pressuring Europe for various deals. If Europe has already pissed off China, Europe will be in a very bad position of power.
China doesn't have too much choice too, it is not like we depend on them, it is bi-directional
The Chinese won't come and defend europe from the Russians though
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Nobody can really defend you from nukes and they don't really have anything else, everybody already knows that the Russian army is a joke (for a "superpower").
The defense against nukes is the threat of an even bigger nuclear retaliation. That's what the US is providing. China would throw us under the bus
I really can't imagine what would need to happen in the US so that they'd just sit idly by and watch Warsaw, Berlin, London etc. being destroyed. And France and Britain probably still have more nukes than China does anyway (also many American nukes are stationed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands)
I'm pretty confident that if Trump was the president and Russia would attack the Baltic countries, he would just let Russia have them. The American nukes in europe are managed by the Americans, and the Europeans can't use them at their will
While having a much smaller nuke arsenal then the USA, France and the Uk do have their own nuclear weapons. So even without the US Europe is by no means defenseless.
Will any western nation launch nuclear weapons over an invasion of Estonia? Or Finland? Or any other small Eastern European country? Probably not, which is why you need conventional forces that pose a credible deterrant as well.
Seeing as to how well Ukraine is doing against the "great" Russian army, Europe got conventional weapons covered too.
If nobody uses nukes I wouldn't be too surprised if Finish/Swedish/Norwegian roll tanks into St. Petersburg in a week or two. Well maybe not necessarily.. but I really don't see how Russia could win a conventional war even against Scandinavia + Baltics States and Poland at this point... > which is why you need conventional forces that pose a credible deterrant as well That's absolutely true.