“Like a German eco-Trump”

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel’s assessment of why his Social Democratic party suffered so many losses in recent elections is “hypocritical”, Jörg Staude says in a commentary for klimaretter.info. Gabriel said his party had neglected its voters’ core issues, at times focusing too much on protecting the environment and climate change. Staude says environmental protection almost never played too great a role for the party, which has in fact caused “stagnation and regression” by protecting coal, limiting the expansion of renewables and rejecting stricter emissions limits. Far from neglecting industry, Gabriel “handed out billions in gifts to energy-intensive industries” in his former role as economy minister, Staude argues. The writer says US President Donald Trump’s anti-environmental thinking seems to be spilling over to Germany, and that Gabriel’s article can be seen as an attack on SPD head Martin Schulz, who recently said climate protection necessitated an end to coal-fired power production.

Read the commentary in German here.