Germany is at risk of becoming as politically polarized as the U.S. amid huge farmer protests over subsidy cuts, Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir has warned.
“This is a dangerous divide that can lead to conditions like those in the USA,” Özdemir told Germany’s Funke media group in an interview, according to reports Tuesday. “People no longer talk to each other, they no longer believe each other and they accuse each other of all the evil in the world,” he said as the demonstrations split German politics.
In late December, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left government announced a tax hike and an agricultural subsidies cut in a bid to solve Germany’s major budget crisis. The phaseout of subsidies for agricultural fuel by 2026 has been at the heart of the farmers’ protests.
The increasing involvement of right-wing participants in the protests is a problem, Özdemir added, because they aren’t prioritizing “the interests of farmers.”
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has positioned itself as the protest figurehead, saying that it stands “by the side of our farmers.” But critics, including Özdemir, have pointed out the party’s program still mirrors its original position from before the protest wave, where it argued for “more competition and less subsidies” in agriculture.
“If it were up to the AfD, agriculture would simply no longer receive any subsidies,” said Özdemir, a senior figure in the Green Party.
Last week, a mob of angry farmers went as far as blocking Economy Minister Robert Habeck, another prominent Green, from disembarking from a ferry as it docked in northern Germany. According to an investigation by German outlet Die Zeit, a woman who stood as a candidate for the AfD is suspected of being involved in organizing the protest.
Joachim Rukwied, president of the German Farmers’ Association that has organized this week’s protests, condemned the incident involving Habeck. “We don’t want right-wing and other radical groups with a desire to overthrow the government at our demos,” he said. “We are democrats.”