In the ARD “Wahlarena”, the Chancellor candidates have to answer critical citizens’ questions, taxes, shortage of skilled workers and high rents. Union Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz tried to score with the voters with the announcement of tax cuts and radical changes in the citizen benefit. “Those who cannot work, but can work will no longer receive a citizens’ allowance in the future,” announced the CDU politician in the event of a government led by the Union after the Bundestag election on February 23.
Merz promised a teacher of nursing professions that also works in her husband’s company and who complained about the tax burden that was too high in her view. “We have too high tax burden in Germany,” he added. This also affects people with small and medium -sized incomes.
Alice Weidel (AfD) also spoke out for lower taxes and energy prices as well as for less bureaucracy.
Climate protection and regulation
There are differences in climate protection, especially to the Greens, said Merz. The Union relies on openness to technology and innovations. “We don’t want it with more regulation.” According to his assessment, the course of the former traffic light government and the Greens does not have the consent of the population in the long run. “If so, then we have to do it with the population.”
Merz said the Union also rely on CO2 pricing, which makes heating and recharging more expensive. It is not the case “that the prices go through the ceiling, that won’t be the case”. The climb will be gradual to take the population with them.
Green Chancellor candidate Robert Habeck disagreed with Merz ‘statements. “Behind the word” open technology “is the attack on the climate goals,” said Habeck. In this way, new heaters would be encouraged if they were not operated with fossil fuels, he said in terms of the heating law. Habeck also advocated inflation for a coupling of BAföG and social benefits as a whole. He also wanted to close “injustice gaps”; So it is not clear why students received more BAföG than trainees.
Merz can be found in the Berlin S-Bahn
When someone asked about the Germany ticket, Merz let you know: “I ride the S-Bahn and subway here in Berlin, my security guards don’t like that anymore, but I drive a lot here.” to get the Germany ticket beyond the current year. You have to communicate with the countries about how to pay, “because this is a fairly expensive project”. Merz also restricted that the ticket was “especially for the metropolitan areas”.
A citizen from the surrounding area of Hamburg told Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) that she had been taken twice for her own. With every move it has become more expensive. When creating more affordable living space, the federal government missed its goal.
Scholz returned that “concrete measures in the existing rents”, such as the extension of the rental price brake, needed. In addition, the federal government created the basis for more affordable new apartments to be built.
Does Weidel’s life plan fit the AfD?
A young man who introduced himself as a homosexual wanted to know from Weidel: “How can you actually be a member of this party as a homosexual person?” After her personal life situation as a woman who lives with a woman and two children in a registered life partnership, Weidel also asked by other studio guests. In the AfD election program it says: “The family, consisting of father, mother and children, is the nucleus of society.” Weidel said that this was a “mission statement” that she too represented.
At the same time, she said that registered civil partnerships, such as theirs, should be legally equated with the marriage. “Why should I and my wife not be equal to tax, as in a normal marriage?” It is a big topic at her home, and she discusses with her wife about how it is regulated when she dies. “And I believe that our civil partnership should not be subordinate to a traditional marriage.” This requirement is not represented by the AfD as a party in the election program.
Almost gap between the candidates
In the program “Wahlarena 2025 for the Bundestag election”, voters had the opportunity to address their questions live to the candidates for chancellor. The alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) had tried unsuccessfully to legally dispute a place on the show.
The format of the show did not provide for longer discussions between the four candidates for chancellor who were asked one after the other. But there were short encounters. When Weidel appeared to Scholz and asked by the moderators whether she had recently learned something new about the Chancellor, she returned: “I have experienced him in two governments and I think everything is said.” Scholz works similar. He said, “Ms. Weidel stays true to herself and I know why I say: You can’t work with this party in Germany.”