Mr. Klingbeil, recently the dispute over transport policy and climate protection has polarized society more than it has for a long time. Is a culture war over the car looming?

Ralph Bollmann

Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of economics and "money & more" of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.

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I have the impression that the car is sometimes symbolic of the conflict between town and country. To a certain extent, I embody both worlds: as a member of parliament and party chairman, I work in Berlin. But I also spend a lot of time at home in the Lüneburg Heath, where I have my constituency. In Berlin, I hardly know anyone who owns a car. Here you stumble out of your apartment and have a wide range of mobility options: S-Bahn, U-Bahn, tram, car sharing, e-scooter. The sentence is already heard: People could just leave the car at home. In my home country, however, this means that you just have to stay at home. This symbolically charges the discussion about the car: Do those up there, those in Berlin, see how we live in the countryside? What is particularly important to me is that all the clever forces in this country must work to ensure that the fight for climate protection does not turn into a culture war.

Is climate protection only for city dwellers?

Not at all. Even in my rural area, many people would like to do without a car ride if it were possible. For example, at home we are currently fighting to ensure that there is also a late train from Hamburg or Hanover so that you can come back after the theatre or the concert. There are citizen buses, including the first car-sharing models. I don't know of any mayor who isn't actively working on new mobility services.

Is that enough to be able to do without a car?

Of course not. In rural areas, the car will always remain part of an integrated mobility concept. As the SPD, we are of course also pushing for public transport to be expanded there. After all, people don't get anything out of it when the ICE trains drive at high speed over a new route, but everyone who lives there just stands by and waves – because they can't get on. We must not only conduct mobility debates from the perspective of the big cities. The majority of people in Germany live in rural areas. It is our task to take into account all the realities of life in the debate on climate protection.

This starts beyond Berlin's city center, see the climate vote and the election defeat of Red-Red-Green in Berlin. Have your party friends in Berlin allowed themselves to be guided too much by the Greens?

The topic of mobility is extremely polarizing. If you take the steps too fast, then there's a counter-movement. This has been exacerbated by the question of where someone will next stick to the street and prevent nurses or bus drivers from coming to work. In the end, this harms the goal that many people actually share. Then there will only be talk about sticking and no longer about climate protection.

The federal government recently had the impression that the FDP is fighting for the car, the Greens are against it – and the SPD is on the side of the FDP, but is publicly ducking away.

It is complete nonsense that there are any teams of two in our tripartite alliance. There are issues on which we are in close agreement with the Greens, for example the basic child benefit, which will undoubtedly come. And there are issues where it was different, for example, in the penultimate coalition committee. I am convinced, for example, that we must also speed up the process of motorway projects that have already been agreed. But it was just as important to us that there was more money for the railways.