The police in Brandenburg allowed again on Friday blockades of motorway entrances by farmers with tractors. “There were registrations for demonstrations,” said Lea Enzenroß, spokesperson for the Brandenburg Police Headquarters, to . She was not aware of any bans. It was the same for similar actions two weeks earlier. “There was at that time the stipulation that only motorway entrances could be blocked.” If exits had also been congested, there would have been a danger of traffic accidents due to backlogs. Demonstrations must be registered with the police in Brandenburg.
In contrast, for the road blockades of the climate group Letzte Generation from 2021 to 2024 in Germany, the police had acted more rigorously. “We have also repeatedly registered individual actions. And we had to experience that in the vast majority they simply were not approved, especially not on roads,” said Marius Schneider, spokesman for the “Widerstandskollektiv” (Resistance Collective), one of the two successor organizations of Letzte Generation. He stated he had been active in Letzte Generation since 2022.
„The police were, unfortunately, also violent toward the protesters in many cases,“ Schneider said. For example, “painful grips” had been used, which the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court recently deemed disproportionate.
Schneider criticized that the police apply double standards when it comes to blockades by farmers and by climate activists. “We have encountered a completely different mood with comparable actions.” This discrepancy is all the more noticeable because the climate-glue protesters were able to justify the choice of their demonstration site on the streets, in terms of content as well, unlike the farmers. Road traffic is one of the sectors that emits the most carbon dioxide, Schneider said.
Actions Against Agricultural Policy
The farmers’ blockades, by contrast, are directed primarily against agricultural policy and the EU trade agreement with four states of the South American Mercosur group. What this concern has to do with motorway entrances remains unclear. A statement by the organizers of the blockades on January 8 left this question open. This also applies to a video from the spokespersons of the actions on Friday.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, authorities had prevented blockades by farmers in early January. An district administration forbade a planned action on the A 11, which the Greifswald Administrative Court confirmed. “Demonstrations on federal trunk roads” are “in principle only possible under narrow conditions due to the considerable hazards involved,” the court explained. “In the present case” the applicant had “not demonstrated a sufficient connection between the subject of the assembly and the location of the demonstration.”
The risk of accidents in motorway blockades is real: On January 10, 2024, a truck driver died after he drove his lorry into the end of a traffic jam formed on the A 66 near Fulda due to a farmers’ protest on the highway.
Only a Few Participants
When asked about the conduct of the authorities in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Brandenburg police spokesperson Enzenroß replied: “I cannot comment on other states.” Why were blockades by climate activists prohibited and those by farmers not? “That cannot be said in general. Each individual registration is examined. It is always a case-by-case decision,” the spokesperson said.
Only a few people participated in the actions in Brandenburg. For the blockades, only smaller groups had called for them, not the dominant Brandenburg State Farmers’ Association. The Brandenburg Farmers’ Federation, which describes itself as the state group of the “Freie Bauern” (“Free Farmers”), and “Land schafft Verbindung Mecklenburg-Vorpommern” participated in the actions on January 8.
On Friday the farmers Thomas Essig and Mario Ortlieb, who belong to the Farmers’ Federation, called for action. In a YouTube video by the two, Essig said that it is not only about the farmers, but generally about the “political circumstances,” for example about taxes “to these criminals we currently have, who are throwing money out the window for things that should actually benefit us.” Immediately afterwards, Essig added that peace flags are also welcome at the demonstrations.
