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Frankfurt / Main (dpa) - Political celebrities and many current topics were the focus of the Ecumenical Church Congress in Frankfurt on Saturday.
After the Kirchentag had to take place digitally and decentrally due to the corona pandemic, the majority of the more than 100 events concentrated on one day instead of the usual several days.
In addition to Bible study and spiritual impulses, the discussions were about climate protection, global justice, moral courage and the fight against extremism, but also about consensus and solidarity.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) emphasized that extensive climate protection measures could only be implemented with appropriate political majorities.
In a discussion with climate activist Luisa Neubauer on Saturday, Merkel said: “I also understand - and that also makes me a bit sad, of course - that young people say:“ Man, we had to go to court first before they could get us into the government really give what we are entitled to ".»
However, the following also applies: "In a democracy, I always have to get majorities for something."
The Federal Constitutional Court had obliged the legislature to regulate the Climate Protection Act in more detail for the period after 2030.
The Federal Cabinet then decided on a new version on Wednesday.
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Neubauer said: "To be honest, I find it very difficult, so to speak, to frame climate protection with a subordinate clause:" But we are in a democracy, because it implies that it would be democracy that stands in our way. " For them, the question is not how much climate protection can be afforded before democracy is overstretched. “But: What do democracies need in the 21st century to get us through these crises, how do they have to be equipped? Because it is obvious that more climate crises will not do our democracies any good either. "
Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) rejected the “vaccine diplomacy” during a discussion on international health policy.
They are more oriented towards "the interests of countries that provide vaccines than those of countries that are urgently dependent on vaccines," he said.
"Vaccine nationalism is not the way to go," stressed Maas.
The fight against the pandemic can only be won globally.
"In the long term we will only be able to do this if everyone around us can do it," he defended the decision to go a common European route when ordering vaccines.
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The pandemic works like a magnifying glass and shows weaknesses in the global health system, said Gisela Schneider, director of the German Institute for Medical Mission in Tübingen. "The answer has to go beyond vaccines." It is necessary to create resilient health systems, for example in underdeveloped or financially weak countries. In order to be able to vaccinate the world population, the suspension of patents must also be discussed, similar to drugs against HIV and AIDS. "It serves global security."
At the Kirchentag, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg highlighted the importance of military deterrence in an interview with women peace researchers. The more credible the military deterrent, the easier it is to negotiate arms control, he said. As long as there is a military threat, "we must first have credible deterrence," he said when asked about military spending and civilian peacekeeping.
Stoltenberg cited the relationship with Russia as an example of the balance between pressure and dialogue.
"We offer dialogue, but Russia continues to behave aggressively, both at home and internationally," he said, referring to Ukraine, Georgia and dealing with Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
"We have to maintain economic pressure and sanctions while we offer an offer to talk."
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Another discussion was about cohesion in society and resistance to racist threats. The lawyer Mehmet Daimagüler, who represented the surviving dependents of the victims of the right-wing terrorist series of murders as a co-plaintiff in the Munich NSU trial, warned against trivialization. "We have to acknowledge that we have a right-wing extremist problem," he said. Look not only after racist and right-wing extremist murders, but at racist insults in everyday life. "We live in a country where 99 percent of the people say something when someone jostles at the supermarket checkout and 99 percent remain silent when the dignity of another person is violated," said the lawyer. "The fight against right-wing extremism must begin with the fight against your own weaker self."
Caro Keller from the NSU-Watch spoke out for more attention for hate speech on the net.
The murder of the Kassel District President Walter Lübcke and the attack in Hanau had shown that the victims had previously been marked by hate speech on the Internet: "There was massive agitation against Walter Lübcke, and there was massive agitation against shisha bars."
It is important that society suppresses hatred and that perpetrators cannot develop the feeling that they are acting on behalf of society, so to speak.
Because of Corona, the discussions were recorded without an audience.
The Kirchentag, which runs until Sunday, is largely digital.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210515-99-609554 / 2
Ecumenical Church Congress