Baden-Württemberg: hail warns of the "hardest winter in recent history"

Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Economically, according to CDU parliamentary group leader Manuel Hagel, Baden-Württemberg is on the way to the darkest times.

Baden-Württemberg: hail warns of the "hardest winter in recent history"

Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Economically, according to CDU parliamentary group leader Manuel Hagel, Baden-Württemberg is on the way to the darkest times. "We are perhaps facing the hardest winter in recent German history," he said in the state parliament on Wednesday. The BASF group alone requires four percent of Germany's gas consumption. If the gas supply there falls below a value of 50 percent, the plants would be shut down - then the largest chemical complex in the world would be idle for the first time in 157 years.

In Baden-Württemberg, within a few weeks, no more cars would roll off the assembly line and the pharmaceutical industry would collapse, Hagel predicted. Many people in the country have existential concerns. Since the financial crisis of 2008, people have gotten used to pretending that the state can cushion all hardships. That won't be the case this time.

In this context, the CDU parliamentary group leader sharply criticized the monetary policy of the European Central Bank. The ECB has pumped far too much liquidity into the market for far too long. Hagel spoke of a "flood of cheap money instead of the courage to reform". An inflation of eight or nine percent is the most unfair thing you can imagine - that divides society.