German politicos lend ear to 15-M ‘indignados’

“They impressed us with their solid knowledge of the topics they presented to us,” said German member of parliament for the Greens Beate Müller-Gemmeke after she and five of her Bundestag colleagues met with representatives of the 15-M, Real Democracy Now, Platform for Mortgage Affected (PAH) and other protest movements in Madrid Thursday.

The Bundestag committee for Work and Social Affairs had requested the unusual meeting with members of Spain’s so-called indignados (the indignant ones) so as to get to “know the political and social reality” of the austerity-wracked country.

In a 48-page document they handed to the Germans, the indignados expressed their regret that no committee from either Spain’s Congress or Senate had requested a similar meeting with them.

They impressed us with their solid knowledge of the topics they presented to us”

“Not just that, but also that the Popular Party government is putting into practice a policy of brutal repression and criminalization against citizens,” it read. “We ask for your help. Our government doesn’t listen to us.”

Among the things the German delegation — which included members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, social democrats of the SPD, liberals of the FDP, the left, and the Greens — wanted to know was the group’s estimation of the number of evictions scheduled for the next few months after being alarmed by the figure of 500 a day given by the PAH.

They also asked their opinions about such matters as the Spanish bailout and what industries in Spain they thought might be able to generate employment.

“As well as measures to clean up the finances, you have to adopt policies for growth,” admitted Erwin Lotter of the FDP in a press conference after the exchange.

It was a view even shared by CDU representative Carsten Linneman. “You have to make reforms, but you also have to ask how to generate growth,” he said.

Although the one-and-a-half-hour meeting in Madrid was reported to have been a cordial affair, the indignados did not refrain from criticism, pointing out to the visitors that “the German banks are the beneficiaries of Spanish misfortunes.”