CDU poster for farmers' protest irritating: Even Altmaier finds it “disturbing”

The violent farmers' protest against Economics Minister Habeck has been criticized. CDU man Peter Altmaier sees his party as sharing responsibility. Hubert Aiwanger thinks: Only one side is to blame.

Ockholm/Munich – Heated atmosphere, a rejected offer to talk and the attempt to storm the Economics Minister's ferry: The farmers' protest against Robert Habeck on Thursday evening in Schleswig-Holstein outraged large parts of society. The fact that parts of the CDU are not helping to calm the climate of discussion comes into focus through a contribution from the Saxon Christian Democrats. Former Economics Minister Peter Altmaier finds clear words publicly – and makes a demand to the authors.

“Stay away from agricultural diesel”: CDU criticized after farmers’ protests over poster

Specifically, it is about a digital poster from the CDU parliamentary group in the Saxon state parliament, which was published on Facebook in mid-December. Next to the somewhat more nuanced text of the article, which condemns the “next hammer for Saxony’s farmers,” there is a large photo. In the foreground: a farmer with an angry face, threateningly holding out a pitchfork towards the camera.

Christoph Bautz denounces the CDU contribution after the aggressive protests against Economics Minister Robert Habeck. “With such images, the CDU in Saxony is fueling the violence that Robert Habeck was confronted with yesterday,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday morning. As the founder and managing director of the “Campact” association, Bautz is more than familiar with communication on social media: “Campact” organizes political online campaigns and citizen movements.

“Disturbing” farmers’ poster: Peter Altmaier (CDU) is concerned about the culture of political debate

Support is then provided virtually by, of all people, CDU man and former economics minister Peter Altmaier. First the 65-year-old inquires about the origin of the poster, then he makes it clear in his own post. “The aggressive imagery of this poster is disturbing.” It harms the concerns of farmers “and also the culture of political debate.”

After the criticism, he went further and gave clear advice to his CDU colleagues in the Saxon state parliament: “It would be good if the authors would clearly distance themselves from it.” That hasn’t happened yet. The original post was still live on Facebook on Friday afternoon. There have been no new posts there since a New Year's greeting.

After farmers' protests against Habeck: condemnation from the Union – but also silence

However, Altmaier was not completely alone in his party with the general criticism of the lack of debate culture and the angry farmers' protest. The potential candidate for chancellor and North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst had previously commented on the incident: “This harms the legitimate concerns of the farmers and must have consequences.” He shares the concerns of the farmers, but this “crossing of the border is absolutely unacceptable,” said Wüst .

The Bavarian opposition did not miss the fact that such words could hardly be heard from the state capital Munich. “Not a single word from Markus Söder and Hubert Aiwanger about the attempted attacks on #Habeck,” denounced the Bavarian Green Party Katharina Schulze on X.

Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) doesn't want to hear any criticism

While Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) prefers to devote himself to personal festivities this Friday due to his 57th birthday, his deputy Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) is once again only too happy to express himself – and unsurprisingly not at all in the way he thinks Greens would wish.

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Aiwanger has no time to respond to criticism or to smooth things over with conciliatory words. On the contrary: “The blame for the farmers’ anger lies solely with the traffic light policy, which threatens our existence,” says the Bavarian Minister of
Economic Affairs opposite the FAZ convinced.

In mid-December 2023, numerous farmers' associations protested indignantly against the traffic light government's austerity plans. But even after the governing parties gave in on Thursday (January 4) and weakened the plans for the cuts, farmers were not appeased. The President of the German Farmers' Association had announced that he would stick to the planned day of protest on January 8th.

Category list image: © Stefan Puchner/dpa/CDU parliamentary group in the Saxony state parliament