Germany: RWE wants to demand compensation from climate activists
After the evacuation of the village of Lützerath, the energy company RWE announced that it would take civil action against demonstrators. "Of course, all disrupters have to expect a claim for damages," said group spokesman Guido Steffen of the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. However, it is not yet possible to quantify how high these could be. There is still no final damage assessment in connection with the evacuation.
Lützerath, which belongs to Erkelenz near Düsseldorf and Cologne, was evacuated in a day-long large-scale police operation against the resistance of hundreds of climate activists. RWE wants to mine lignite there. According to the energy company, there was considerable property damage, including to the group's vehicles and systems. In addition, several wells and switchgear were destroyed.
In a current hour, the Bundestag also dealt with the protests in Lützerath and the behavior of the police. In the debate on Friday, there was criticism in particular of the Greens, who had supported the compromise on the coal phase-out in the Rhenish mining area in the Bundestag, but from whose ranks there were disapproving voices for the eviction of Lützerath.
Sebastian Fiedler from the SPD also said that there were attempts by left-wing extremists to undermine the climate protests. This discredits the "good efforts of climate activists". The Green MP Lukas Benner from Aachen emphasized that the majority had demonstrated "absolutely peacefully" in Lützerath. A reappraisal of the scenes from the demonstration in the interior committee in North Rhine-Westphalia is necessary - there had been allegations of excessive violence against the police. However, he also reported on a few radical activists: the windows in his constituency office had been smashed in the past week, and activists had talked about “treason and resistance”.
Source: Welt
Photo: Federico Gambarini/AFP
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