Farmer protests are suddenly no longer just about the question of whether a subsidy is justified or not. It is said that nothing less than democracy is at stake.
The whole thing itself wasn't really dangerous in the end, but the image stuck. There is a German minister and vice-chancellor sitting on a ferry in a port in Schleswig-Holstein. An angry crowd on the pier. He should dare to come out and not be such a coward, they shout at him. The minister invites three of the farmers to talk. But they want him out there where there are lots of them and he is alone. The minister's security guards wave at him, very uncertain, without a chance.
That's what happened to Robert Habeck. The Green Vice-Chancellor's response to this siege came on Monday when farmers brought in tractors to disrupt half the driving in the country. He said a few words about farming on Instagram. He then raised what had happened to a dramatically high level: it was now also about saving democracy. Not less.
A tractor demonstrator in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia Imago / Rene Traut
In fact, it was agricultural diesel, it was previously thought, a tax break for foresters and farmers. Habeck and the German government want to abolish this. Even now. The protest, however, threatens to become a German version of the French yellow vest protests, which some in Berlin's government district have long feared. Mixed with a touch of revolutionary stance that characterizes the US Tea Party movement, which led to Donald Trump's presidency.
The coming days and weeks will show how Germany, which traditionally fights for peace and Zen, deals with this moment of the yellow vest tea party. But farmers would probably return home if they got their tax rebates back, which were quickly canceled by the overburdened government because it couldn't come up with a budget that complied with the constitution and had to find money elsewhere for its budget deficit.
On the other hand, some of the angry farmers used more than just their tone. A democratic protest must do without gallows, crowds and savage threats. This was emphasized by almost the entire republic – from the German Farmers' Association to the opposition CDU.
A tractor demonstrator in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. Imago / Beautiful Sports/buriakov
If German farmers, in their anger, choose to seek salvation from the AfD, which is sometimes just right-wing populist and sometimes right-wing extremist, it may turn out that one or two people will soon wish that someone had been sent on the ferry to Habeck, to talk. The AfD’s basic program states: “Agriculture: More competition. Fewer subsidies.”