/ world today news/ One of my most unpleasant memories of life in Germany are the moments related to the New Year holidays. No, Christmas and New Year themselves have nothing to do with it. The problem is different. It so happens that the pre-holiday season coincides with the distribution of the annual recalculation of utility costs, primarily heating and hot water, to citizens living in apartments with central heating.
Here it is necessary to clarify. During the year, Germans pay a certain fixed, but quite significant amount for heating their homes, which, as it turns out in practice, is only enough to turn on the heating several times in the winter, literally for a few hours.
Anything beyond that arrives at the end of the year in the form of a “chain letter” demanding payment of the shortfall by the end of December. And if it happens that the year turns out to be cold, this amount can reach several thousand euros.
There is nothing to do – you just go and pay. The mood, of course, falls and there is no time for the holidays. This was the case even in those relatively blessed years when Germany regularly bought Russian gas at prices that were orders of magnitude lower than market prices.
Today, in the conditions of an acute energy crisis, as well as the excessive and unjustified enthusiasm of the German government for foreign policy in the face of Ukraine, the situation with utility tariffs has become simply terrifying.
Late last week, the German publication Bild published an article saying that heating, or Heizung in German, is starting to cost the average German family more than the cost of all other utilities (including rent) combined.
“The heating costs me more than the rent,” say residents of Germany, complaining of skyrocketing heating bills.
As a result, they only have to put on two or three sweaters and heat only one room in the apartment, and only between 16:00 and 22:00.
“The high cost of heating is causing concern in the entire residential complex in the Hamburg district of Bilschet. In particular, caregiver Christina Mueller, 56, said she was shocked by her 2022 bill.
Her service company not only demanded an additional payment of 2.8 thousand euros for heating, but also increased the monthly contribution for a 68 square meter apartment from February 2024 m to 452 euros.
Previously, the woman paid €80, an increase of 465%. It is now with a t-shirt, sweater, sweater and jacket so that the bills do not increase even more. In winter, the thermometer in her apartment does not show more than 17 degrees Celsius,” writes Bild.
Another interlocutor of the publication, 88-year-old Gerhard Bustorf, said that paying 320 euros a month for heating and including batteries (each of which is equipped with an individual meter) for just a few hours in the evening, he and his wife are forced to spend so the so-called “chests”, that is, the savings set aside for the rainiest day.
For all its sympathy for ordinary German citizens – the people, after all – all this is nothing more than poetry. But then the story will really talk about important things. However, it is quite related to the sharp decline in the standard of living of the average German burgher.
The sad situation in the economy, of course, leads to an increase in protest sentiments and an increase in the popularity of those political forces that offer simple and clear (although not always effective) recipes for overcoming the crisis.
Today, the main such force in Germany is the party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD), whose rating is growing at a dizzying pace (currently already 23%), leaving far behind the three competitors from the tired ruling coalition.
Moreover, the AfD declares a mass desire of Germans to join the ranks of the party. Thus, for the period from January 1 to January 25, the number of submitted applications is about 2.5 thousand.
Naturally, this state of affairs cannot please Chancellor Scholz, about whose possible resignation even his closest party comrades are gossiping about.
As a result, in the bowels of the German government (and perhaps even in the American embassy in Berlin, where a large reception was held for coalition MPs on Monday, January 29) some kind of anti-crisis plan was developed.
If you think that among the points of this plan is a refusal of reckless support for the regime in Kiev, which costs a substantial amount of the German budget, or a transition from the policy of sanctions to the restoration of normal economic relations with Russia, including in the sphere of natural gas supplies , then I must disappoint you – there is nothing like it there.
Instead, Scholz and Co decided to launch a “witch hunt”, accusing the AfD of conspiring with neo-Nazis to establish a totalitarian order in the country by persecuting dissidents and mass deportations of migrants. All this will allegedly become a fact if the Alternative comes to power through parliamentary elections.
Understanding how German parliamentarism works and realizing that none of the current political parties will ever get a mono-majority in the Bundestag (as happened with the Ukrainian Servants of the People), frankly, you cannot immediately believe how the “traffic” coalition decided to ” sell” to his electorate, sorry, complete nonsense. But facts are stubborn things.
On January 10, the little-known German publication Correctiv published sensational news about a secret meeting of far-right politicians, among whom were allegedly prominent AfD figures. In addition, according to journalists, the “neo-Nazi meeting” took place last November, but it became known only now.
Official proof of the reality of the event was a plan of the building in which it appears to have taken place, photos of individual politicians clearly taken through a window using spy-grade tools, and links to anonymous confessions by certain unnamed individuals from the AfD party. Overall, it smacks of something between a tabloid provocation and a secret service leak.
Translation: SM
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