In her newsletters Sahra introduces TV or press items where she is interviewed and speeches she makes in Parliament.  Also brief statements of policy.

21March 

While calls for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine are getting louder and louder in the USA, while Washington is obviously no longer prepared to burn American taxpayers’ money in this senseless war, Mr Pistorius is signing the next big arms cheque in Ramstein and in the EU even the last taboo, the deployment of ground troops, is beginning to unravel. In my speech in the Bundestag, I call on the German government to finally endeavour to achieve a ceasefire so that the dying stops and Europe does not lurch into a third world war.

Making children fit for war? No thanks!  

First Mr Lauterbach wants to make our healthcare system fit for war, now Education Minister Stark-Watzinger is calling for children to be prepared for an emergency in schools with civil defence exercises and visits from the Bundeswehr. In the Welt interview, I explain why this proposal reminds me of my youth in the GDR with its pre-military training, what the elections in Russia mean for us, and why we would not be doing Putin a favour by lifting sanctions, but rather the people and companies in our country:

Ramstein meeting: Who is paying for the war in Ukraine? 

No European country is supplying Ukraine with more weapons than Germany. But instead of talking about how this terrible war can be ended, Defence Minister Pistorius writes more cheques to Ukraine at the meeting in Ramstein, and the CDU/CSU initiates a debate about cutting social benefits. My press statement for the BSW Group in the German Bundestag explains why we don’t need more and more money for weapons or across-the-board cuts to citizens’ benefits, but rather higher pensions, a rent cap and more affordable public housing:

A referendum on pensions 

More than every second state pension is less than 1100 euros. I find it disrespectful and indecent that the coalition government wants to increase parliamentarians’ salaries but does nothing to tackle the millions of cases of poverty in old age. It is time for citizens to decide for themselves whether they would prefer a fair pension system that is also financed by politicians, the self-employed and civil servants. A referendum on the future of pensions is needed, preferably on the day of the 2025 general election!

We need a different economic and social policy 

No other country has spent so much on subsidising energy prices and yet we in Germany have the highest energy prices in the EU. I talk about why we need a different economic policy and more public investment and how we can reduce the costs and abuse of the citizen’s income without cutting benefits across the board, even for those who rely on a strong welfare state, in an interview with the FAZ [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung].

It’s about interests, not trust 

In an interview with the taz newspaper [Die Tageszeitung], I explain why negotiations to end the war in Ukraine are necessary and that they must not be about trust, but about balancing interests, and why migration is not a suitable means of solving the shortage of skilled labour. 

Learning from Pope Francis  

Why does Pope Francis have to justify himself for an appeal for peace negotiations and not politicians for their inability to bring two warring parties to the table? In my guest article for the Tagespost, the full version of which is unfortunately behind a paywall, I analyse what we can learn from the Pope’s ethics of responsibility, why a willingness to negotiate is not a sign of weakness, but on the contrary requires the courage to turn back on a path that has long since proved to be a dead end. 

We have to come to terms with Russia somehow 

I spoke to RBB’s Inforadio about why there is no alternative to negotiations with Russia, what a sensible balance of interests might look like and why security in a world with nuclear weapons can only be shaped together. 

We are the serious alternative 

In the interview with the Rheinische Post, we talk about the BSW’s election campaign and possible coalition partners, government responsibility and how we can change politics as the opposition. 

News from the BSW  

Since our party was founded in January, 17,000 people have registered with us as supporters and 8,000 have applied for membership. I would like to express my sincere thanks for this overwhelming support and the trust placed in us. Please understand that it can sometimes take a little longer for us to respond to your enquiries. Our party is still under construction and we are working hard to create structures that will enable us to respond effectively to the numerous offers of support. Despite the challenges we are facing – including a suspected cyberattack against our organisation, which we immediately reported to the authorities – we must not be discouraged. Your commitment is crucial in order to send a strong signal for a necessary policy change in the upcoming elections to the European Parliament on 9 June, in the state elections in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony, in some local elections and, of course, in the next federal election. We are planning to give the party a new name after the federal elections in order to emphasise our broad base and objectives even more clearly.

21/3/24

Defence lobbying costs us billions

I don’t think our country should become war-ready. On the contrary: we must do everything we can to avoid being drawn into wars. Nevertheless, we do of course need a Bundeswehr that is capable of defending our country. But where does all the money for this actually go? In the Welt interview, I talk about lobbying, which leads to billions of taxpayers’ money being wasted on arms procurement, and why I find it problematic when a politician like Ms Strack-Zimmermann sits on all the arms industry’s lobby committees at the same time.