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Post: The bitter taste of chancellery: Scholz and his first year at the helm

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. archive photo

INSA poll: 55% of Germans dissatisfied with Scholz’s performance in his first year as chancellor

BERLIN, 8 December – RIA Novosti. Exactly one year before that, on December 8, 2021, Olaf Scholz became Chancellor of Germany, replacing Angela Merkel, who had presided over the German government for the previous 16 years. About the change of ages, the Chancellor’s decisions in times of crisis, and intriguing moments, in RIA Novosti’s review.

On Wednesday, marking the completion of his first year as chancellor, Scholz presented a piece of dark chocolate brand Ampelmann (“Traffic light man”) to ministers at a cabinet meeting. The governing coalition is called the “traffic light” because of the colors of the parties it contains (SPD, FDP, and the Greens).

The bittersweet gift caused laughter in the audience, German news agency dpa reported.

“This explains the situation very well,” said Defense Minister Christina Lambrecht (SPD), who has recently come under criticism from coalition partners for her moves.

A year later, two-thirds of Germans are dissatisfied with the governing coalition and its chancellor, according to recent studies. An INSA poll conducted at the end of November showed that 55 percent of Germans were dissatisfied with Scholz’s work, up from 39 percent in March.

The main criticism of the Chancellor relates to the energy and economic crises in the country, foreign policy decisions that affect the interests of German business, and insufficiently active actions aimed at influencing the situation in Ukraine.

Therefore, some politicians from the ruling coalition actively criticized the government for not being determined to supply Ukraine with weapons. To this Scholz has repeatedly replied that Germany does not intend to act alone and does not want tensions between NATO and Russia. Also, according to the chancellor, Germany is not and will not be a party to the conflict in Ukraine.

One of Scholz’s most talked-about speeches was his speech to the German Bundestag deputies on February 27, the fourth day of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. He then announced that “the times have changed” (German: Zeitenwende), the creation of a special fund of 100 billion euros for the modernization of the Bundeswehr, and the start of military arms shipments to Ukraine. At the same time, experts pointed out that the Chancellor’s position on an important issue for German society was not clear enough, at first he postponed, and then sharply agreed to the supply of military equipment to Kiev. It also negatively affected their rankings.

In addition, some of Scholz’s government coalition partners took a hard line on his China policy, and particularly his trip to that country in early November. The main concern is that the chancellor is expanding Germany’s dependence on China.

There were funny moments too. German residents and the German press take the opportunity to joke about the chancellor’s “forgetfulness” about a multibillion-dollar tax evasion case.

In 2018, massive investigations by various media outlets emerged about Cum Ex tax schemes that enriched the networks of scammers using the tax refund scheme. In 2016, when Scholz was mayor and chairman of the SPD party in Hamburg, the tax office requested the recovery of 47 million euros from Hamburg private bank MMWarburg & CO, which the financial institution received only as a result of the 2009 tax plan. , but it didn’t expire for unknown reasons.

Shortly before that, Scholz accepted the shareholders of this bank. The chancellor later told the investigating committee that he “doesn’t remember” the contents of the conversation. Representatives of the opposition CDU party then demanded the Chancellor’s resignation. The German Prosecutor General’s Office dismissed the complaint about the failure to investigate Scholz’s involvement in the fraud case due to lack of evidence.

The German media also mocked the Chancellor and his wife Britta Ernst repeatedly throwing confidential documents in the trash. Especially after the G7 summit held in Bavaria in June, it was reported that a piece of paper containing short resumes and photographs of heads of state and government was found in the container, for example Mario Draghi’s wife was killed. He was then Prime Minister of Italy, “avoiding the people”.

Another sensational story in Scholz’s first year as chancellor was the insult of the former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, who called the chancellor a “broken liverwort” after he refused to visit Kiev. Melnik later expressed his regret at these words.

Source: Ria

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