From BZ/dpa
Accompanied by loud protests, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) faced a town meeting in the Brandenburg town of Neuruppin on Wednesday evening.
A conversation with the Bundestag member Wiebke Papenbrock (SPD) was announced. The AfD and the left had called for counter-demonstrations. Protesters chanted “traitors” and “Get lost”.
Scholz could hardly be understood. It is estimated that several hundred people were at the event location on the school square in the Brandenburg city. The police initially gave no information on the number of participants.
One of the viewers asked, “When people take to the streets again, will you give the order to shoot?” Will the police who are here now be used against the population? We saw how close it was here. The question is meant seriously.”
The Chancellor’s answer: “Nobody in this country intends that demonstrators be shot at, and whoever spreads such horror stories is a bad propagandist, if I may say so quite clearly.”
Spectators protest at the speech by Chancellor Olaf Scholz Photo: Carsten Koall/dpa
In a speech he reiterated his promise of further relief to help citizens against inflation and high energy prices. The previous decisions of the traffic light coalition bring the citizens 30 billion euros, and not all of it has arrived, said the SPD politician on Wednesday evening in Neuruppin, Brandenburg. But it is clear: “More has to happen.” The government will decide on this “in the next few days”.
Scholz also promised a permanently “stable level of pensions” in response to a corresponding question in a citizens’ dialogue. It is about long-term security, “so that you can rely on the fact that this is a perspective”, even for 17-year-olds today.
When asked by a sixth-grader, Scholz agreed that, despite the lack of gas, the school would be open in winter Activities in gyms would be secured. “I’m pretty confident that we can manage it.” The Chancellor defended the gas levy that will apply from October.