Friday 10th September 2021
Interview with Volt co-founder
“I’m incredibly mad at the government”
In the election campaign there is more talk about plagiarism and weird candidate appearances than about Europe, climate change or digitization. Damian Boeselager, co-founder of the Volt party, attacks the SPD and the Union sharply: The federal government has failed in the EU reconstruction fund.
At the end of August, Germany received the first billion from the EU reconstruction fund – 2.25 billion out of a total of 25 billion euros. It is money that should be invested after the Corona crisis in order to sustainably get the economy going again and make it more crisis-proof. Damian Boeselager, co-founder of the pan-European Volt party, closely accompanied the design, alignment and control of the € 750 billion fund in the budget committee as a member of the European Union – and is now going tough with the grand coalition.
“I’m incredibly mad at the German government,” he said in the podcast “The Zero Hour”. You have “completely failed”. Germany had no reform ideas at all – for the pension system, for example. In addition, the grand coalition simply rededicated existing national programs.
“When it came to pensions, we were told: Hey, we’re going to set up a website like this, so everyone can see how much pension they will get at some point. That’s a joke,” criticized Boeselager, who has been the only MP for Volt since 2019 Brussels Parliament is seated. In the coalition’s plans, he sees “no design claim at all”. Germany is simply having already planned programs “refinanced at European level”. The money “fizzled out on the German level”.
Boeselager was one of the co-founders of Volt in 2017, which sees itself as a pan-European party and runs the same program in all member countries. In 2019 Volt got 0.7 percent of the vote in the European elections and moved into the EU Parliament with one member. The big issues such as Europe, climate change and digitization, says Boeselager, unfortunately hardly played a role in the current election campaign.
In order to change something at the federal level, Volt is running with a top duo. In addition, the party would like to move into the Berlin House of Representatives. Since 1980, the number of party members has halved all over Europe, said Boeselager. “For us it is important that we are up for it again and that good people go into politics.”
Listen to the new episode of “Zero Hour”:
- What advice Boeselager received from experienced politicians
- How many people have applied to become part of Boeselager’s team
- What it was like to work as an MEP during the pandemic
You can find all episodes directly at Audio Now, Apple or Spotify or via Google.
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