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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1237 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 27, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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We recently had our federal elections in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the winners, the CDU and their sister-party CSU, are currently organizing their coalition with the SPD.

The CSU got to pick the future minister of agriculture, and they chose Günther Felßner für the job.

Felßner has now cancelled this plan, because animal rights activists broke into his farm-home to protest against some form of animal abuse or another. Supposedly his wife feared for her life, and he considers his family's safety more important than high political office.

The protest has been condemned by the future government parties, but overall not much is made of it.

First the lefties get Tesla stock prices down through distributed property damage, now they pick off a future minister of agriculture in Germany with trespassing and intimidation. Terrorism works.

Now, hold on, this probably needs the caveat of "terrorism works in the short term." I doubt this automatically means that the Greens are going to get the pick instead.

I doubt this automatically means that the Greens are going to get the pick instead.

No, it means someone less offensive to the Greens is going to get picked, which means they get to act like they're a part of the ruling coalition without being in it.

The German Grunen are an electorally serious political party that frequently joins coalition governments (occasionally including ones led by the CDU/CSU) - the sort of animal rights extremist who breaks into a politician's home would consider them contemptible sell-outs.

The coalition isn't going to find an agriculture minister who is acceptable to the eco-loonies - because joining a CDU-led government is unacceptable per se. They are probably going to find an agriculture minister who lives in a more defensible location.

It is as @ArjinFerman says.

Die Grünen (and to a lesser extent die Linke) are married to the activists, which form the so-called APO (Außerparlamentarische Opposition / extra-parliamentary opposition). The two don't compete; they cooperate.

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