Sarah-Lee Heinrich is the federal spokeswoman for the Green Youth.Image: Elias Keilhauer
Germany
Life is expensive: the costs of food, electricity and heating are increasing. For many people beyond the pain threshold. Especially for many students. For this reason, the federal government announced a one-time payment of 200 euros last autumn.
This special payment should be paid out to every student who applies for it without much effort. But it’s obviously not quite that simple. The appointment is still delayed. The spokeswoman for the Green Youth, Sarah-Lee Heinrich, is now bursting at the seams.
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Green youth demands quick payment of the support
“It cannot be that we still have to wait for the energy price flat rate and it is not at all clear when the money will arrive,” Heinrich explains to watson. Most young people would have needed the 200 euros in the fall – every week that the students now have to wait is one too many.
In addition, Heinrich makes clear, the planned sum of 200 euros was far too little last year. She says:
“If you look at how much a week’s shopping costs and that you pay six euros for a doner kebab almost everywhere, it’s quite clear that many students are currently not making ends meet.”
The students will probably have to wait even longer for their one-off payment.Image: dpa / Julian Stratenschulte
In the meantime, the traffic light government has launched three relief packages. This included, for example, the 9-euro ticket or the one-off energy price lump sum of 300 euros for employed persons subject to tax. The electricity and gas price brake should take effect in 2023 and it should also relieve people.
The spokeswoman for the Green Youth is not enough. With a view to the interests of young people, Heinrich passed a devastating verdict on the traffic light coalition:
“Regardless of whether it’s climate protection or social issues – I always get the impression that the traffic lights don’t particularly care about the interests of young people and that we keep falling behind.”
What Heinrich now expects from the traffic light: “The government will finally deliver and the money will be paid out quickly.”
The second day of the evacuation of Lützerath is underway. In cold, wet weather and strong winds, some climate activists are still holding out in the abandoned village, which is to be demolished for the expansion of the adjacent brown coal mine. The RWE energy company, which owns the village, has had the site fenced off. The last gaps in the one and a half kilometer fence are to be closed during Thursday.
