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Schröder was cozy with Russia/Gazprom before he was an "ex-chancellor". This level of corruption was seen as "business savvy" at the time and he was coming in a

by hnbad 4y ago

Schröder was cozy with Russia/Gazprom before he was an "ex-chancellor". This level of corruption was seen as "business savvy" at the time and he was coming in as the leader of an opposition government on the tail end of 16 years of Kohl, who took his corruption secrets to his grave after being fondly remembered for bringing about the reunification while being less remembered for enabling the massive firesale of East Germany to private investors and speculators. This was of course also helped by the Greens, Schröder's coalition partner, being religiously anti-nuclear but too cowardly/dishonest to also demonize gas, coal and oil to the same degree. Of course another factor in this is EU liberal market reforms which promoted austerity and cutting public investments, effectively laying the groundwork for the eventual shutdown of solar subsidies at a time when Germany was seeing massive interest and business development in solar technology (and to be clear: coal, oil and gas continue to be heavily subsidized to this day). The German government has repeatedly shat the bed when it comes to energy independency, green energy and averting the climate crisis. The only thing we accomplished to date was shutting off all nuclear plants (which is nonsensical if the goal is to reduce the impact of the climate crisis while we still run on coal, gas and oil) and despite all their campaigning this was achieved by a conservative-led government without the involvement of the Greens. This is not to say that the conservatives aren't corrupt. In fact from what we do know about ties to lobbying groups and direct business deals, the conservatives are even more corrupt, if only by the number of corrupt politicians. But either way this is very much on the German government, not an "ex-chancellor". His post-chancellor business ties were set up when he was still in office if not well in advance and the rest of the government played along (and continued to do so well past his term).

AlbertCory 4y ago
Good answer, thanks. You certainly know German politics better than I do, but I have a hard time believing that if Angela had said "Herr Schröder, do not do this!" he would have gone ahead anyway.
themitigating 4y ago
I wasn't aware of his other actions. The comment I was responding said "How about becoming dependent on known bad actor Russia for gas, and having an ex-Chancellor on the board of Rozneft?". I felt the person was placing the blame on the government for what a private citizen did and that they put pressure on him once the war started. However I didn't take the time to look into his background and how that relationship with Russia started (that led him to being on the board). It's also obvious that it wouldn't have happened suddenly and Putin wouldn't give him a position solely for his business advice. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind. -------------------------------------- Wasn't the green party moving to the center in order to gain power? This required them to hold more moderate positions[1]. I'm not saying "gaining power" is a noble goal but it's different from being cowardly. They also have other goals they want to promote, like LGBT. Correct me if I'm wrong about who they represent in Germany. As for nuclear power: So the deathblow for nuclear power that you are talking about is the SPD/green agreement 20 something years ago to shut them off in like 30 years but actually 2022 because of technical reasons. This was extended slightly by the CDU/CSU a few years later [3]. Wasn't that agreement and the position of the Green party in line with popular anti-nuclear opinion at the time? Seems like anti-nuclear has a long history in Germany that picked up steam after Chernobyl. In fact 10 years after that agreement Fukushima[5] which boosted the Green party support. "Polling done by the newspaper Der Spiegel [in 2022] shows similar trends. According to their survey, 41% of Germans are currently in favor of building new nuclear plants. In a similar poll done 33 years ago [1989] only 3% of Germans thought the country should build new plants." [3]. If sentiment changed with the public post agreement isn't it difficult to reverse course on new reactors or an energy strategy? Again noting that Fukushima is only 11 years old and kind of bumped anti-nuclear support in Germany. [1] https://arnejj.org/centrist-progressive-force-the-german-green-party-after-the-2021-election/ https://arnejj.org/centrist-progressive-force-the-german-gre... [2]https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-germanys-nuclear-phase-out https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge... [3]https://www.energymonitor.ai/policy/weekly-data-shift-in-germanys-perception-of-nuclear-energy https://www.energymonitor.ai/policy/weekly-data-shift-in-ger... [4] https://www.dw.com/en/german-greens-make-same-sex-marriage-guarantee-condition-of-coalition/a-39294421 https://www.dw.com/en/german-greens-make-same-sex-marriage-g... [5]https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-german-green-party-is-wilting/a-38512419 https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-german-green-party-is-wilting/...
- hnbad 4y ago
  The Greens are more socially progressive than conservatives but it's wrong to think of them as ideological leftists. They arose out of the counter culture movement but they generally stand for a very individualized view of "climate protection". On a federal level, the Greens are an extremely mixed bag. The Greens in some lands (states) are very progressive and in others they are extremely conservative, especially in the South. The "moving to the center" narrative mostly goes back to the red-green coalition under Schröder which saw the Greens abandoning their pacifist rhetoric after 9/11 and supporting the SPD in implementing EU liberal market reforms like the massive cuts to the social welfare system. But in principle, this was as much the SPD abandoning its principles as the Greens. Both parties were already in power, so this had nothing to do with appealing to a broader electorate (which is also known to be a false idea: it's not that the electorate won't vote for people too far from the "center", they just prefer voting for candidates they trust to follow through on their promises and most attempts at off-center messaging from so-called left-wing parties tend to be empty promises). This actually resulted in the split of the SPD with most of its actual left wing leaving the party to later join ranks with the East German PDS (the successor to the East German state party) to form Die Linke ("the left"). But they're their own can of worms so I'll leave it at that. Regarding Fukushima: while the Greens certainly helped start abandoning nuclear power, Fukushima was the final nail in the coffin and had Merkel (a conservative without involvement from the Greens) cash in on the public reaction to the disaster by publicly stating that all remaining nuclear plants would be shut down on and announcing a timeline. Chernobyl heavily factored into the general anti-nuclear sentiment but it originates with the peace movement (which later tied into the Greens) which frequently conflated nuclear power and nuclear weapons. I actually think the recent decrease in unpopularity (because calling it "popular" seems misleading) of nuclear energy has more to do with German politics being less haunted by the looming threat of nuclear annihilation that was felt during the Cold War and with more people understanding the climate crisis to be a real prospect and emissions to be a more direct problem than nuclear waste storage. I was a kid in the 1990s but I remember hearing more then about the risks of nuclear power and the dangers of nuclear waste than in the past decade since Fukushima. That said, if you want a barometer for public opinion it's probably better to look at the headlines of the newspapers BILD and Welt as they shape a lot of the public conversation despite being thinly veiled right-wing outrage bait (BILD being more yellow press and low brow with Welt trying to appear more respectable but ofen recycling the same material). They're both owned by Axel Springer, the German equivalent of Rupert Murdoch. I don't think nuclear is off the table completely but it's really hard to rekindle because even prior to the exhaustingly slow shutdown of nuclear plants the popularity of anti-nuclear messaging prevented any serious investments in the technology even though this made the few aging reactors increasingly more dangerous while keeping nuclear energy as a whole less efficient than it could have been. We'd basically need to start over. While this isn't in itself a bad thing, it just means any attempt to go back to nuclear would take years before seeing any positive result, allowing for plenty of time to get outraged about nuclear waste storage again.

by hnbad 4y ago

AlbertCory 4y ago

Good answer, thanks. You certainly know German politics better than I do, but I have a hard time believing that if Angela had said "Herr Schröder, do not do this!" he would have gone ahead anyway.

themitigating 4y ago

I wasn't aware of his other actions. The comment I was responding said "How about becoming dependent on known bad actor Russia for gas, and having an ex-Chancellor on the board of Rozneft?". I felt the person was placing the blame on the government for what a private citizen did and that they put pressure on him once the war started. However I didn't take the time to look into his background and how that relationship with Russia started (that led him to being on the board). It's also obvious that it wouldn't have happened suddenly and Putin wouldn't give him a position solely for his business advice. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind. -------------------------------------- Wasn't the green party moving to the center in order to gain power? This required them to hold more moderate positions[1]. I'm not saying "gaining power" is a noble goal but it's different from being cowardly. They also have other goals they want to promote, like LGBT. Correct me if I'm wrong about who they represent in Germany. As for nuclear power: So the deathblow for nuclear power that you are talking about is the SPD/green agreement 20 something years ago to shut them off in like 30 years but actually 2022 because of technical reasons. This was extended slightly by the CDU/CSU a few years later [3]. Wasn't that agreement and the position of the Green party in line with popular anti-nuclear opinion at the time? Seems like anti-nuclear has a long history in Germany that picked up steam after Chernobyl. In fact 10 years after that agreement Fukushima[5] which boosted the Green party support. "Polling done by the newspaper Der Spiegel [in 2022] shows similar trends. According to their survey, 41% of Germans are currently in favor of building new nuclear plants. In a similar poll done 33 years ago [1989] only 3% of Germans thought the country should build new plants." [3]. If sentiment changed with the public post agreement isn't it difficult to reverse course on new reactors or an energy strategy? Again noting that Fukushima is only 11 years old and kind of bumped anti-nuclear support in Germany. [1] https://arnejj.org/centrist-progressive-force-the-german-green-party-after-the-2021-election/ https://arnejj.org/centrist-progressive-force-the-german-gre... [2]https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-germanys-nuclear-phase-out https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge... [3]https://www.energymonitor.ai/policy/weekly-data-shift-in-germanys-perception-of-nuclear-energy https://www.energymonitor.ai/policy/weekly-data-shift-in-ger... [4] https://www.dw.com/en/german-greens-make-same-sex-marriage-guarantee-condition-of-coalition/a-39294421 https://www.dw.com/en/german-greens-make-same-sex-marriage-g... [5]https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-german-green-party-is-wilting/a-38512419 https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-german-green-party-is-wilting/...

hnbad 4y ago
The Greens are more socially progressive than conservatives but it's wrong to think of them as ideological leftists. They arose out of the counter culture movement but they generally stand for a very individualized view of "climate protection". On a federal level, the Greens are an extremely mixed bag. The Greens in some lands (states) are very progressive and in others they are extremely conservative, especially in the South. The "moving to the center" narrative mostly goes back to the red-green coalition under Schröder which saw the Greens abandoning their pacifist rhetoric after 9/11 and supporting the SPD in implementing EU liberal market reforms like the massive cuts to the social welfare system. But in principle, this was as much the SPD abandoning its principles as the Greens. Both parties were already in power, so this had nothing to do with appealing to a broader electorate (which is also known to be a false idea: it's not that the electorate won't vote for people too far from the "center", they just prefer voting for candidates they trust to follow through on their promises and most attempts at off-center messaging from so-called left-wing parties tend to be empty promises). This actually resulted in the split of the SPD with most of its actual left wing leaving the party to later join ranks with the East German PDS (the successor to the East German state party) to form Die Linke ("the left"). But they're their own can of worms so I'll leave it at that. Regarding Fukushima: while the Greens certainly helped start abandoning nuclear power, Fukushima was the final nail in the coffin and had Merkel (a conservative without involvement from the Greens) cash in on the public reaction to the disaster by publicly stating that all remaining nuclear plants would be shut down on and announcing a timeline. Chernobyl heavily factored into the general anti-nuclear sentiment but it originates with the peace movement (which later tied into the Greens) which frequently conflated nuclear power and nuclear weapons. I actually think the recent decrease in unpopularity (because calling it "popular" seems misleading) of nuclear energy has more to do with German politics being less haunted by the looming threat of nuclear annihilation that was felt during the Cold War and with more people understanding the climate crisis to be a real prospect and emissions to be a more direct problem than nuclear waste storage. I was a kid in the 1990s but I remember hearing more then about the risks of nuclear power and the dangers of nuclear waste than in the past decade since Fukushima. That said, if you want a barometer for public opinion it's probably better to look at the headlines of the newspapers BILD and Welt as they shape a lot of the public conversation despite being thinly veiled right-wing outrage bait (BILD being more yellow press and low brow with Welt trying to appear more respectable but ofen recycling the same material). They're both owned by Axel Springer, the German equivalent of Rupert Murdoch. I don't think nuclear is off the table completely but it's really hard to rekindle because even prior to the exhaustingly slow shutdown of nuclear plants the popularity of anti-nuclear messaging prevented any serious investments in the technology even though this made the few aging reactors increasingly more dangerous while keeping nuclear energy as a whole less efficient than it could have been. We'd basically need to start over. While this isn't in itself a bad thing, it just means any attempt to go back to nuclear would take years before seeing any positive result, allowing for plenty of time to get outraged about nuclear waste storage again.