When Robert Habeck climbed the small stage in the Ehrenhof in downtown Bayreuth on Thursday evening, deafening whistles and horns broke out in front of the barriers. There is booing, more than a hundred people chanting "Hau-ab!". Many have brought posters with them insulting the Economics and Climate Minister as a “warmonger”, one poster even calling for “Nuremberg Processes 2.0”. The majority of Bayreuthers actually came that evening to discuss with Habeck, but at first it looked as if the loud minority would prevent the debate.
The civil dialogue in Bayreuth is part of a short summer tour that Habeck traveled to on Thursday: It only lasts two days, he actually has no time for such a trip, after all there is a shortage of gas. Putin is driving the minister responsible for energy issues with ever new volts about gas supplies.
The tour now has the motto "Economy and work in the crisis". On this day, Habeck has already taken a look at the gas storage facility in Bad Lauchstädt, which is not only about 90 percent full – as a pilot project, it will soon no longer only store natural gas, but also hydrogen. He then visited a paper factory in the Upper Palatinate and the Bayreuth municipal works, but the highlight of the first day was actually supposed to be the public dialogue.
You can tell that the minister was surprised at the beginning by the vehemence and volume of the protest. He tries in the typical Habeck way, offers the conversation, asks for a dialogue, but he doesn't get through. "Let's keep the area of democracy open, even against the volume," he appeals, but it is drowned out by calls of "liars" and "Get lost". Nevertheless, he continues to talk about the Ukraine war, about energy and gas, about Corona, climate change, about the fact that Germans have to learn how to deal with crises and live with them again.
He appealed that Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law, must not be successful, that everything must be done without becoming a party to the war to prevent this. Nevertheless, the protesters chant: "warmongers". The accusation does not leave Habeck cold. "When people shout 'warmonger' back there, it's a categorical confusion of cause and effect, of guilt and innocence," he exclaims. "There is a warmonger in Europe, but that is Putin, it is not the ones who support the people in their struggle for freedom."
It almost sounds as if he was encouraging himself when Habeck asserted over the noise of the demonstrators: "We are - and that's what makes us different in Europe - apart from a few people, a strong country with a strong democratic center, we are in the Finding an agreement with the strength of the arguments.” His voice, still battered by the corona infection, breaks. "The vast majority of the population is determined and united," says Habeck.
The federal government will do everything to help people cope with the dramatically increased energy costs. "What we should not discuss is whether we submit to a dictatorial regime and a war in Europe that violates international law," he demands. “If we did that, we are not the right federal government for it.” He is looking forward to the questions from citizens “despite the noise, I would even say because of the noise”.
But the question time that follows shows that it's no longer just about a few loudmouths standing behind the barrier. Even the people directly in front of the stage are by no means all satisfied with Habeck's politics. A concerned citizen asks at the beginning whether the minister gets enough sleep at all, he looks exhausted. Another questioner, who claims to be a friend of Habeck's party, is embarrassed by the protests: "I would like to apologize for this city, I'm shocked." She gets applause for this, but the noise is louder.
Then Jürgen Schaffer grabs the microphone and tries to calm the angry demonstrators first: "I'm one of you," he says, but the whistles continue. Schaffer is not a crank, not a lateral thinker, he would never vote for the AfD, he asserts. "But I have a huge problem, I've had a small shop since 1992 and I won't be around next year." He sells tropical ornamental fish and koi carp, "I don't know if you still need an aquarium with today's energy costs" , he says.
Since the war in the Ukraine broke out, customers have made enormous savings and hardly ever spend any money on their hobby. "I make a thousand minus per week, but I would have to save money to be able to pay my energy costs," complains Schaffer. The energy transition is causing rising costs, he is concerned that there will be a shift to the right across Europe if inflation continues like this.
"I cannot promise you that the sales market for ornamental fish will remain in the future," says Habeck. He promises that people will not be left alone with the energy costs. "Where I would like to disagree is that the so-called energy transition is driving up costs, but we see that speculation in fossil energies is driving up costs." He doesn't convince Schaffer, he waves his hand and laughs.
A solar entrepreneur speaks up and refers to Willy Brandt that relations with Russia must be intensified again immediately. To stop buying Russian gas would be “economic suicide”. It is "window dressing" that you can quickly switch to renewable energies.
A woman complains that no one in the middle class in particular knows how inflation will continue: "What plan do you have to push back social inequality and aggression, which is also growing, so that people have hope? Despite our arms deliveries, murder continues in Ukraine. What plan does politics have for its own people first of all?” It is not extremists who are speaking out here. An engineer wants to know what to say to his father-in-law, who has just invested in a new oil heating system. Habeck says he was given the wrong advice.
The Economics Minister also realizes that he is far from being able to win everyone over here. "I don't assume that you were completely convinced of my answers," says Habeck at the end. Nevertheless, the evening "went better than I thought at the beginning". He closes with the typical Habeck pathos. "The fact that you stayed, despite the tinnitus in your ear, you did a service to discourse and democracy," he says. The applause in front of the stage is drowned out by the whistles.
