Floods in Germany: policies on the climate front and the next elections
Floods in Germany: scenes of devastation in Bad Neuenahr, Rhineland-Palatinate, July 16, 2021. REUTERS - WOLFGANG RATTAY
Text by: RFI Follow
5 mins
In Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, the showers must stop this weekend but the water is there, everywhere rivers and rivers have overflowed and washed away everything in their path.
Houses, cars ... lives too and the toll rises to more than 150 deaths in total, including 133 in Germany.
In the west of the country, devastated, emotion is great among the German population ... but also among political leaders, especially since 2021 is an election year.
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with our special correspondent in Bad Neuenahr,
Pascal Thibaut
This week's disaster recalls with a much heavier human toll this time the significant floods that Germany had experienced in 2002 and 2013. Each time, it was, as in 2021, an election year.
It is therefore necessary for those in charge to find the right measure not to be accused on the one hand of a lack of empathy, on the other of exploiting the event for political ends.
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To read also
: Floods in Europe: the toll exceeds 100 dead and hundreds of missing
#BadNeuenahr last night #floods pic.twitter.com/K3kRMoBe1P
- Pascal Thibaut (@pthibaut) July 16, 2021
In the front line, which is normal, are the officials of the two regions concerned, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. This second Land is headed by
Armin Laschet
, the president of the CDU, candidate for the chancellery. These two regions want to set up direct and rapid aid. Angela Merkel participated online yesterday in a meeting of the Rhineland-Palatinate government. She could go there. The Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz, candidate for the chancellery for the Social Democrats was on Thursday on the ground. He is due to present a government aid plan to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday. In 2013, a fund of eight billion euros for eight regions concerned was set up. The candidate of the Greens for the chancellery
Annalena Baerbock,
on the defensive after many criticisms, wants to go on the ground but without involving the press so as not to be accused of political recovery.
Climate change at the heart of the legislative campaign
More than ever the environment and the consequences of global warming will figure at the heart of the electoral campaign which is beginning.
The conservative interior minister said these changes explained the current disaster.
Armin Laschet, who has not shown himself in the past as a thunderbolt in terms of environmental protection, believes that efforts must be stepped up on this issue.
This is also what the President of the Republic, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who will be at midday this Saturday on the ground, declared more solemnly.
Experts are calling for better prevention to avoid such disasters, more effective warning mechanisms and in the long term a more resolute commitment against global warming.
15 FLOODS / ALL _Asphalt Bad Neuenahr region: damage, always
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