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In Saxony-Anhalt, the CDU makes one mistake after another in the dispute over the increase in transmission rates. ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio have not been in focus for a long time. It is about much more.
René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo once made a big mistake. The small Gallic town is not in France, as the creators of Asterix want us to create, it is in Saxony-Anhalt, and it is populated not by inflexible Gauls, but by headstrong members of the CDU. They are not supposed to be subjected to occupation by any Roman, but only by Democrats in their senses. And what they do all day is not funny at all, but scary.
The disguised Gauls of Magdeburg
His parliamentary group in a federal state with just half the inhabitants of Rhineland-Palatinate is preparing these days to impose the will on all of Germany. It’s about ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio and increasing their transmission fee by 86 cents. This increase for public service broadcasting (ÖRR) is the result of a very long, slow and complicated process. It became a law that all prime ministers, including the Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, signed, and almost all state parliaments have or still will ratify it.
Only the CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt is completely against it, which leaves even the federal party itself speechless around Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
Since unanimity is needed on this, the Gauls in disguise from Magdeburg could revoke the project for all of Germany due to the majority in the state parliament, or in the end they would simply delay unnecessarily and make it more expensive. Experts assume that Saxony-Anhalt will later receive gossip from the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. the Constitutional and media lawyer Dieter Dörr, for example, wrote this months ago in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” explained.
The tenacity of the CDU parliamentary group
Just because everyone is in favor of something does not mean that even a comparatively small parliamentary group in a democracy has to give in, but in the given circumstances it has to be more willing to compromise than it is now. It is an oligarchic behavior to want to impose its position on the majority. This is not how democracy works. The CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt should come to its senses as soon as possible. Everything else must not let its red-green coalition partners get away with it if they don’t want to harm the cause themselves.
The tenacity of the CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt suggests that in the end it is probably not about the issue at all, not the premium increase, the first in eleven years, nor substantive reforms in the ÖRR. Furthermore, the factual arguments put forward by the “Gauls” are not very plausible. It is unlikely that the CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt has exclusively recognized and discovered that 86 cents should be too much due to the Crown crisis; In any case, no one has ever argued that way. Their insistence on “contribution stability”, as explicitly agreed in the coalition agreement, amounts de facto to a reduction in contributions in light of inflation since 2009 without any increase.
ÖRR is enemy number one among crown deniers
And the demand for more attention for East Germany has long reached the ÖRR. The tense search for arguments fuels doubts and thus the idea solidifies that the CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt may be trying to ingratiate itself with those who call the press lies and maintain a connection with the ideas. right-wing conservatives. The ÖRR is enemy number one among crown deniers, extremists, people of popular orientation and those who want to discriminate against other nasty population groups.
ARD, ZDF, and Deutschlandradio explicitly set themselves against his efforts. The MDR State Treaty says: “Programs must not be directed against international understanding and against the maintenance of peace and freedom.” The WDR law in North Rhine-Westphalia goes one step further: “The WDR is supposed to promote international understanding, European integration, social cohesion, non-discriminatory coexistence at the federal and state level, and real equality between women and men. men, for peace and asking for social justice, defending democratic freedoms and being committed to the truth. ” It is similar in all comparable legal standards between Kiel and Munich and something similar is found in the specifications for the media in other democratic states.
CDU has galloped
Therefore, it is not a coincidence that authoritarian characters like to achieve ÖRR, as can be seen with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, the Polish Patriarch of PiS Jarosław Kaczyński, with the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson or Donald Trump, who, however, is the same. Reports from all the media that do not broadcast your opinion are declared “fake news.” If the CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt remains steadfast on its course, it will strengthen precisely these tendencies, whether it expressly wants to or not.
She went crazy on the subject. She has promised her potential voters that she will stop something that is actually beyond her control, and then she is extremely vehement and strong in defending it. This fatally recalls the stubbornness of the CSU and the Federal Minister of Transport, Andreas Scheuer, with the car toll. The result is known. Therefore, the Saxon-Anhalt “Gauls” should better accept, if necessary, appear as failures. The damage they will otherwise cause will be many times greater.
Don’t lose sight of the principles of freedom and democracy
Certainly, the Christian Democrats like their often unhappy state party leader Holger Stahlknecht. I have to claim in a state, where the AfD achieved its second best result in a state election in 2016. However, this should not lead to losing sight of the principles of democracy and freedom.
His group is about to make a common cause with the AfD, as if they had learned nothing from the debacle of their friends in the Thuringian party in the spring and the Kemmerich affair. Of course, the AfD is also opposed to a change in the State Broadcasting Treaty, how could it be otherwise? A no in the state parliament would inevitably put both of you in the same boat.
The firewall on the right should remain
That may not bother some in the CDU Saxony-Anhalt, Parties in the party have long been flirting with the rapprochement with the AfD or it does not even exclude cooperation at the state level. Even if a large part of the East German population votes for the AfD, that does not make the party a normal democratic alternative. With due understanding for those people in Saxony-Anhalt who think so differently from the rest of the republic and who, of course, need political representation, no party in the center can make concessions at this time – the firewall on the right! must be maintained!
Anyone who disagrees should seriously consider founding an Eastern CDU; where this could then join the AfD.
At the latest, when this firewall on the right becomes a problem, what is happening in the CDU of Saxony-Anhalt is more than an internal and regional matter. So the issue concerns the whole of Germany and the attention of all honest democrats is necessary to defend themselves against any beginning and to oppose it.
Lamya Kaddor is German with Syrian roots. In her column “Zwischenentöne”, the Islamic scholar, educator and Islamic religious publicist, member of the Greens, discusses the issues of Islam and migration for t-online. The opinions expressed in the guest post reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily correspond to those of the editors of t-online.
