Friday 17th September 2021
“Klartext” with Baerbock on ZDF
“Human rights apply to everyone”
By Marko Schlichting
In the past two weeks, viewers on the public broadcasters have looked at the three candidates for chancellor. On Thursday evening, Annalena Baerbock will be a guest on the ZDF program “Klartext”. The viewers experience a combative candidate.
Annalena Baerbock still dreams of becoming a chancellor. But the polls of the last few weeks predict something different for the Green candidate. Your party is clearly in third place. Nevertheless, Baerbock was combative in the ZDF program “Klartext” on Thursday evening. She definitely wants to belong to a new government. “Because we really need a new start, I trust that it will only work with a green federal government,” she emphasized.
In return, the politician did her best in this program. It has a decisive advantage: it comes from the opposition. The Greens are not responsible for much of what the grand coalition has decided over the past eight years. Above all, she criticized the fact that the governing parties had done too little, especially when it came to climate change. Baerbock seemed to like the interview format that ARD and ZDF offered her. Once again, around 70 viewers were guests of the “Klartext” program. And they had the main role: They could ask questions.
Baerbock managed to respond to every guest on the show. She took the audience seriously, discussed with them. She responded to several invitations and promised visits to Lusatia and Lake Constance after the federal election. And this time she admitted gaps in her knowledge. When asked by a farmer, she believed that dairy farmers would earn 50 cents on a liter of milk. According to the farmer, however, it is only 31 cents – which is also in line with the information provided by the farmers’ association.
When asked by a viewer from Saxony, Baerbock said that the countries of the EU should form an alliance for climate neutrality with the USA. “In Germany we will not save the world climate alone,” she said. She wants to hold on to the coal exit. At the same time, Baerbock criticized the fact that open-cast mining was being expanded in Poland. This leads to a drop in the water table in the border region.
Agricultural policy of the European Union is to be modernized
The program’s first applause came when a farmer reported about her fear of having to close farms because they no longer paid off financially. Here, too, Baerbock relied on the EU. She called for a new agricultural policy of the European Union, “which ensures that subsidies are no longer distributed with the watering can.” It is important to her that meat products are labeled so that customers know how the animals were kept. “The supermarkets are now doing this voluntarily because the Minister of Agriculture did not get it baked!”
There were discussions on the subject of wind turbines. Baerbock wants to use two percent of the area for their construction. Most of the wind turbines are in northern and eastern Germany, said Baerbock. As a result, new plants would now have to be built, especially in the west and south. Baerbock reacted very honestly to a Fridays for Future activist who accused her of not being able to achieve the 1.5 degree target with the measures planned by the Greens. According to this, the average temperature on earth should rise by a maximum of one and a half degrees by the year 2100, compared to the beginning of industrialization in 1850. “Our program says that we want to get on the 1.5-degree path. But I can don’t promise to be there in four years, “said Baerbock.
Of course, one of the most important topics of autumn was discussed, the corona crisis. A Long Covid patient came forward. The entrepreneur described that he contracted Corona in March of last year and is now suffering from the long-term effects. He had painstakingly learned to read and write again, and he still couldn’t climb stairs. Rehabilitation measures are not paid for, and far too little money is invested in researching the long-term effects of the corona. “I can assure you: you are not alone,” promised Baerbock. Cross-party efforts will be made for people with long-term corona consequences.
Baerbock calls for deportations to Afghanistan to be suspended
Baerbock reacted very calmly towards the end of the program when she spoke to the daughter of Vietnamese parents. She was an AFD member, said the woman, and spoke out in favor of limiting the immigration of people from Muslim countries. There was multiple applause on Baerbock’s answer. Baerbock called for deportations to Afghanistan to be suspended. “You cannot deport people to a country where they face the death penalty because they stand up for their rights, for human rights or the rights of women,” said Baerbock. The viewer replied that the AFD would also campaign for human rights. “I hear that differently in the Bundestag,” said Baerbock. “They are not concerned with human rights for everyone, only for Germans. Human rights are indivisible. They apply to all people in the world.”
In the end, the impression remains: there is someone who could bring a breath of fresh air into politics. Baerbock doesn’t want to please everyone: In the show, she disappointed some questioners because she clearly stated the limits of her possibilities. She campaigned for social and ecological change in Germany. If she could really score with something on Thursday evening, it was with her honesty – and with the fact that she did not shy away from speaking out unpleasant truths.
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