Today, we are discussing the case of Germany since concern is growing in Germany. With us Kai Littmann, director of eurojournalist.eu.
franceinfo: 30 years ago, in October 92, Willy Brandt died. Would we need Willy Brandt today in Germany?
Kai Littmann: Yes perfectly. Moreover, there were a few commemorations on October 8, precisely to remember this date, and all the comments were identical. It is someone like Willy Brandt that we need today, in a crisis situation.
Crisis situation with the specter of recession looming for Germany, and the Germans fear the depreciation of their economy, of the currency, the euro. Is it German tropism 1919, 1929, 1945, ruin?
Yes thats exactly it. We have to be realistic. The recession, we are right in it, even if we are only at the beginning. But the Germans are realizing how badly things are going. And I think that fear is entirely justified.
Fear, at a time when Germany must modernize its public and private infrastructures, which will cost a fortune?
There, we begin to pay for the omissions of the last decades when Germany has invested very very little in its infrastructures. A simple example: in Germany, there are 13,000 bridges which should be cleaned up and which are in danger of collapsing, 13,000 bridges over railway lines, over motorways, etc. And that is just one example. Schools, structures, leisure centers, sports centers, etc. should be redone. And Germany, with the unification which cost a lot of money, failed to invest in infrastructure. All this work must be done now, and Germany simply cannot.
And especially the railways?
Especially the railways. We had incidents last week, we are talking about sabotage. Ultimately, we don’t know yet. But we realize that our infrastructures are neither protected nor in working order. And here it really becomes critical.
The last regional elections in Germany were in Lower Saxony. The SPD won, yes, but…
It is a somewhat bitter victory for Olaf Scholz, because it was not he who won these elections, it was because of their Minister President, Stephan Weil, who is very popular in Lower Saxony. And even worse, since the FDP, one of the coalition partners in Berlin – the liberals, failed to break the 5% mark and will therefore not be represented in the next parliament of Lower Saxony – threatened to blow up the coalition considering that the party was not visible enough in the politics carried out. As a result, Olaf Scholz finds himself with a double problem. If ever the coalition in Berlin were jeopardized, Germany would become ungovernable.
And Olaf Scholz faced with the question of the Comex?
The Comex is a scandal of the first order. This is a systematized tax evasion system. Everyone was involved. The political world, the world of finance, and Olaf Scholz is currently appearing once or twice a week before a Bundestag committee of inquiry where there is no longer anyone who believes that he does not remember anything, who does not can’t remember meetings that took place nine months ago, struck by a sort of amnesia that’s starting to get weirder and weirder…
So the neighbor across the Rhine, is to watch?
One to watch closely, because given the current situation, if Germany does not remain the reliable partner at European level, Olaf Scholz’s “doppel wumms” will be implemented – this is a term that was coined by Olaf Scholz to describe a shield of 200 billion euros which will be distributed in the form of lower costs – to put a lid on energy prices which, in the best of cases, risks making the lives of Germans, but which will create extreme inequalities at European level, because there are not many countries in Europe which can afford to mobilize 200 billion euros to deal with this situation, energy prices which explode.
So it’s an extremely anti-European approach and there are many voices in Germany asking the question: why in this situation, we don’t favor a European solution instead of playing this national card again and again?