WWhen the CSU invites people to a festival tent, they make sure that nothing distracts from the basic theme of their election campaign: The Greens don’t fit in with Bavaria. A coalition with them is out of the question. The Greens were different on a September evening in Freising. In the people’s festival tent, which they are hosting, speakers will be not only the Green Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir and the Green Party’s top candidate Katharina Schulze, but also the head of the Upper Bavarian Farmers’ Association, Ralf Huber, who wants to be in the state parliament for the Free Voters. Friction is inevitable. And the Greens get that too.
They are too demanding when it comes to animal husbandry, says Huber, too lax when it comes to wolves – and the “forced closure” of four percent of agricultural land because of species protection “doesn’t affect cowhide.”
Why are the Greens doing this to themselves? One reason could be that they are perhaps a little more interested in serious discourse about the problems of our time than the CSU, for example. Although: There is no longer that much open-ended debate among the Greens. Another possible reason: the tense atmosphere between them and parts of the peasantry.
A few years ago, people sat at a round table and agreed on extensive nature conservation measures as a result of the “Save the Bees” referendum. But many farmers only did it with their fist in their pockets. When Özdemir and Schulze were booed in a festival tent in Chieming at the beginning of August, the aggression also came from the farming community.
Özdemir against his own milieu
Since then there has been more police presence at their events. But the Greens are also trying to do their part to promote relaxation. For example, when they propagate climate protection, they do so with the twist that increasing levels of severe weather events also threaten Bavarian homes. The calculation in Freising: If someone from the farmers’ association is allowed to speak, the troublemakers will stay away. It works, the atmosphere is good and exuberant, which is also due to the accompanying band “CubaBoarisch 2.0”.
But the Greens also want to show that the gap between them and the farmers is not as deep as the CSU and Free Voters would have you believe. In fact, both are in the same boat when it comes to the issue of land consumption through road construction or commercial development in some places. There is also mutual appreciation.
In Freising, Huber praises Schulze’s co-leading candidate Ludwig Hartmann. He successfully campaigned with the Federal Greens for wood chip heating systems to be treated more mercifully in the Building Energy Act than previously planned.
Özdemir answers Huber directly. The minister is rhetorically clever, but you can see how difficult it is for him to simultaneously charm the farmers’ association and sweep the Greens audience off their feet. He says that he had previously visited a slaughterhouse in Kulmbach where research was being carried out into how animals could be stunned in the future in such a way that it would be less stressful for them, “with helium, for example – I think that’s great.” That’s not the case for everyone here.
Özdemir also explains that four percent of set-aside areas is already a compromise – “the original demand from nature conservation was ten percent”. And he also suspended the four percent because of Putin’s “terrible war of aggression against Ukraine” and thereby “did something against my own milieu”, something “for which I don’t get any applause from my people.”
When in doubt, fight against the right
The evening in the festival tent in Freising shows that he has a point. Nature conservation is no less complicated than the relationship between Bavaria and the Greens. They tried drinking water during the election campaign. Because that’s everyone’s business. They have drawn up a “water security law” and there is also a saying: “We are securing our blue gold.” But then the leaflet affair came and washed everything away. Or not?
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