Podcast
In the election campaign there is more talk about plagiarism and weird candidate appearances than about Europe, climate change or digitization. Damian Boeselager, co-founder of the Volt party, is now sharply attacking the SPD and Union: The federal government has failed in the EU reconstruction fund.
At the end of August, Germany received the first billion from the EU reconstruction fund – 2.25 billion euros out of a total of 25 billion euros. It is money that should be invested after the Corona crisis in order to sustainably get the economy going again and make it more crisis-proof. Damian Boeselager, co-founder of the pan-European Volt party, closely accompanied the design, alignment and control of the 750 billion euro fund in the budget committee as a member of the European Union – and is now going tough with the grand coalition.
“I’m incredibly mad at the German government,” he says. You have “completely failed”. Germany has not submitted any reform ideas at all – for the pension system, for example. In addition, the grand coalition simply rededicated existing national programs.
“When it came to pensions, we were told: Hey, we’re going to set up a website like this, so everyone can see how much pension they will get at some point. That’s a joke,” criticizes Boeselager, who has been the only MP for Volt since 2019 Brussels Parliament is seated. In the coalition’s plans, he sees “no design claim at all”. Germany can simply “refinance” programs that have already been planned. “That means we took that 25 billion and didn’t budget a cent for anything new.” The money was “fizzled out at the German level”.
Fancy politics again
Boeselager was one of the co-founders of Volt in 2017, which sees itself as a pan-European party and competes with the same program in all member countries. In 2019 Volt got 0.7 percent of the vote in the European elections and moved into the EU Parliament with one member. The big issues such as Europe, climate change and digitization, says Boeselager, unfortunately hardly played a role in the current election campaign.
In order to change something at the federal level, Volt is running with a top duo. In addition, the party would like to move into the Berlin House of Representatives. Since 1980, the number of party members has halved all over Europe, said Boeselager. “For us it is important that we are up for it again and that good people go into politics.”
Listen in
- What advice Boeselager received from experienced politicians
- How many people have applied to become part of Boeselager’s team
- What it was like to work as an MEP during the pandemic
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Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
