Lack of willingness to engage in dialog: Kretschmer accuses federal government of dealing with farmers' protests

Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer has accused the federal government of a lack of willingness to engage in dialog when dealing with the farmers' protests. "More dialog is needed," said the CDU politician on Deutschlandfunk radio on Monday morning. Kretschmer called on the traffic light coalition in Berlin to explain more.

The words of Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens), according to which the government cannot be blackmailed, are "an impossibility in a democracy". "You would have to apologize for that immediately," said Kretschmer. Nobody in the German Farmers' Association believes that you have to enforce your position 100 percent. But the federal government was doing what it wanted.

These demonstrations would come to an end when the traffic light coalition sent the signal: "We have understood". Resentment is growing not only among farmers, but also in other parts of society. Kretschmer therefore called for an urgent need to sit down at a table and find a consensus.

In response to farmers' protests, the federal government announced on Thursday that it would withdraw some of the planned subsidy cuts. The traffic light coalition wants to abandon the originally planned abolition of the motor vehicle tax exemption for agriculture. The abolition of tax concessions for agricultural diesel is to be extended and implemented in several stages over the coming years. However, the German Farmers' Association considers the measures to be insufficient.