Protesting farmers use tractors – and piles of dung – to paralyse Germany
Thousands of German farmers blocked motorways and city centres across the country on Monday as they began a week of protests against government proposals to cut their fuel subsidies.
The co-ordinated nationwide demonstration saw furious agricultural workers line up their tractors outside Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, while more than a thousand were massed on a single stretch of motorway near the city of Mainz.
Police also launched an investigation on Monday morning into piles of dung that were dumped outside constituency offices of Germany’s main coalition parties, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-Left SDP party.
In a sign of rising public anger against Mr Scholz, the protests were held despite the German government announcing a partial U-turn on controversial plans to cut tax breaks and fuel subsidies for farmers.
The funding cuts had been drawn up as the chancellor struggled late last year to fill a massive hole in the German government’s budget, which was created by a surprise court ruling that prevented ministers from drawing on pandemic-era funds to support future projects.
Mr Scholz’s coalition initially planned to abolish agricultural diesel subsidies and vehicle tax breaks for farmers – but after major farmers’ protests in December they abandoned the latter policy.
They also diluted the proposal on diesel so that the subsidies would be gradually phased out over several years rather than cut instantly.
But this has not mollified the German farming association, which has vowed to unleash protests “the likes of which the country has never experienced before”.
Sporting high-vis jackets as they stood outside their tractors on a freezing Monday morning, some farmers cited food imports from overseas as another factor in their decision to strike.
“I am here because we are food producers and food should come from home. Otherwise we are making ourselves more dependent [on foreign food imports],” Markus Werner, 59, a vegetable farmer, told German tabloid Bild.
“Food is coming in from abroad without checks, and with pesticides in them for example. It only makes us more dependent, it is similar to the energy transition,” he added, apparently referring to Germany’s shift away from dependency on cheap Russian gas.
“The anger is very great because something is always decided first and then thought about,” Mr Werner said of the government’s policies.
Later on Monday Mr Scholz’s administration announced there would be no further changes to its policy, risking further ire from farmers.
“There are no considerations within the government to change anything,” a spokesman said.
It came as ministers and trade union leaders warned the protests could be co-opted by the far-Right. In some regions hard-Right parties reportedly joined the demonstrations.
In Saxony, the Free Saxons, a secessionist extremist movement, spoke at a rally outside the Semperoper opera house. Third Way, a neo-Nazi party, also issued a call on its website for supporters to join the farmers.
‘No beer without farmers’
Separately, the far-Right AfD party has been joining some protests to the apparent discomfort of German farming associations who fear that their protests over subsidies could be hijacked by groups with other agendas.
“No beer without farmers,” warned one tractor seen at a demonstration, while another was seen carrying an AfD placard on its rear which said “our farmers first!”
Robert Habeck, the vice chancellor from Germany’s Greens party, warned that “calls are circulating with coup fantasies, extremist groups are forming and ethnic-nationalist symbols are being openly displayed”.
Mr Habeck’s own holiday was disrupted over Christmas as protesters attempted to storm a ferry he was riding on.
Germany is typically considered as more strike averse than neighbouring France, due to historically very close and consensus-led relations between industry leaders and the government.
But a recent increase in disputes over pay and workers’ conditions has made strikes far more common, adding to tensions over the soaring cost of living, an energy crisis and a faltering German economy.
Later this week Germany potentially faces another round of walkouts from rail staff and lorry drivers, creating yet more transport chaos.
Those strikes are being planned separately from the farmers’ protests, and focus on a dispute over railway worker wages and a recent increase in tolls on heavy goods vehicles.