Robert Habeck, once praised for his pragmatic politics, is now causing concern. His admissions at the citizens’ dialogue on the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law and his ill-considered statements about Israel policy raise serious questions about his understanding of government. Habeck’s actions endanger Germany’s national and international reputation.

There were times when I praised and defended Robert Habeck’s pragmatic and unconventional way of thinking and explaining politics. This is now becoming a danger for our country, both internally and externally.

On the occasion of the citizens’ dialogue on the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law, Minister Habeck stated, according to chroniclers, that he had overwhelmed the population when it came to climate protection with the heating law. He went as far as one could go without risking a complete collapse of climate protection. “The debate about the Building Energy Act, i.e. how we will heat in the future, was honestly also a test of how far society is prepared to take climate protection – if it becomes concrete. And I went too far.” Such honesty deserves recognition.

Wolfgang Kubicki is Vice President of the Bundestag and Deputy Federal Chairman of the FDP. He is a qualified economist and lawyer.

However, the Vice Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany seems to have missed the fact that his job is not to reduce the people of this country to guinea pigs, but, on the contrary, to serve their well-being.

What kind of constitutional understanding is it to deal with the sovereign from whom all power in the state comes?

“I tested and I went too far” shows more of an autocratic understanding than a democratic one. It reminds me strongly of the tragic figure of Hauke ​​Haien in Theodor Storm’s “The Schimmelreiter”.

The almost careless treatment of Article 115 of our Basic Law is also concerning. It is pretended that the debt brake could be suspended “just like that” or that an emergency could be declared “just like that”. You just can’t. If you don’t like the existing law, you have to change it. As long as it applies, everyone must observe it. Everything else leads to arbitrariness.

Annalena Baerbock once explained that Robert Habeck knows more about chickens, pigs and milking cows than he does about international law. One would like to later agree with her and at the same time feel sorry for the animals.

The fact that the Vice Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany casually states in the aforementioned citizens’ dialogue that Israel is violating international law in the Gaza Strip and that this has now also been established in court damages the reputation of the entire Federal Government, and indeed of Germany, in the world.

It’s a gift that Robert Habeck “forgot” to mention that Hamas has been ignoring the court’s order to immediately release the Israeli hostages for months (a blatant violation of international law, by the way).

On May 24, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled, among other things, in the interim injunction proceedings:

The military offensive and all other measures in the Rafah Governorate that could impose living conditions on the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip that could lead to its total or partial physical destruction must be stopped immediately (note this qualifying clause!). The court justified its decision by stating that the humanitarian situation of the people in the Gaza Strip is catastrophic and has continued to deteriorate since 28 March, the date of the court’s last order. This applies in particular to Rafah.

The developments in the Gaza Strip are exceptionally serious, which is primarily due to the ongoing Israeli military operation, and there is therefore a risk that the Palestinian population could suffer irreparable damage until a decision on the main proceedings is made if no interim measures are adopted.

There is not only urgency, the ICJ said, but a real and imminent danger that the Palestinians’ right to be protected from possible genocide could be violated before the court can make a final judgment.

So much for the court’s decision. There is a real risk of violation of international law, which the measures ordered are intended to counteract.

This was and is not only understandable, but corresponds exactly to the previous German position.

And now Robert Habeck is shockingly relaxed with his statements in the said citizen dialogue: “The German government has said this several times that it is wrong that Israel is not allowed to carry out this attack, at least not in the way it previously dealt with the Gaza Strip. Bombing of refugee camps and so on. Of course, Israel must adhere to international law and the famine, the suffering of the Palestinian population, the attacks in the Gaza Strip are – as we are now seeing in court – incompatible with international law. That means it is indeed the case that Israel has crossed borders there, and it must not do that.”

We now know that the Minister of Economics knows nothing about economics. The fact that the Vice Chancellor of Germany is no longer able to differentiate is unfortunate because it massively affects our international reputation.

In the first semester of law you learn the difference between danger and injury. Danger is the name given to a situation which, if left unhindered, in the foreseeable future will, with sufficient probability, lead to damage to the protected property. This logically implies that the damage has not yet occurred. So when the ICJ states that its order is intended to prevent the risk of a violation of international law, it also declares that such a violation cannot, at least at present, be recognized.

In any case, I wonder when thinking went out of fashion in Germany.

The Greens (!) are calling for Ukraine to be allowed to use Western weapons in the Russian heartland – without addressing the question of whether this might entitle Russia to attack the transfer points in NATO territory. And then?

There is a call for a demonstration against hatred and agitation in Stuttgart and the banner is presented: “All of Stuttgart hates the AfD” and none of the demonstrators notice anything, as if there is good and bad hate.

The accusation of “Nazi” is now used with such inflationary arbitrariness that one has to ask oneself whether people still understand what the National Socialists did on this continent. Anyone who uses the Nazi accusation for anything at will completely devalues ​​it.

“No one should or may be excluded.” That’s a nice sentence. And then the CSU should not take part in the CSD in Munich. Are you crazy?

It would be nice if we could find our way back to tolerance, cosmopolitanism and the wide limits of our constitution, to self-determination, self-realization and personal initiative.

It is still possible to dream without government permission. We should make use of the time.