Bairbock presents an infrastructure plan for rural areas

Green leader Annalena Barbock makes life in the country more fascinating. In a paper reported by the newspapers of “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” (Saturday edition), it promises improvements in transportation infrastructure, better health offers, legal rights to faster mobile Internet, and other measures. “Life in the country means freedom for many,” writes the chancellor candidate.

Vacant Bus Parking, via DTS News Agency

“Provided you have a car.” So the Greens want to “introduce a mobility guarantee and provide everyone with access to fast and reliable public transport, even in the evenings, on weekends and during holidays”. To promote electromobility in rural areas as well, Barbock is calling for a mandatory network of charging stations for e-cars.

There should be a charging station every ten kilometres. For better health care, she promises to set up health centers in rural areas, which will be based on the model of polyclinics as they were present in the GDR. In the paper, the Greens chief calls for legal authority to accelerate LTE mobile network coverage, and that “the federal funding program for broadband expansion should be revised so that areas with the worst service are given priority”. To modernize his work, Barbock envisions co-working spaces in converted barns or school buildings.

“Co-working spaces have long been no longer the hipster stuff from the big city, but are a practical alternative to commuting and working from home in the country,” she writes. With a “Sports Development Plan”, Bairbock seeks to “work with sports federations, federal states, municipalities and local sports enthusiasts to provide targeted funding opportunities to strengthen popular sport in rural areas”. . “There is a connection between loneliness, closed village pubs, grocery stores, train stations and resentment towards the state, abandonment of democratic structures,” the Green politician said. She announces an initiative to amend the Basic Law.

So the Greens want to anchor “a new joint act” in the Basic Law to regional services of common interest and make it a priority in the next federal government. To provide relief to economically indebted municipalities, Bairbock is proposing an additional investment fund of 500 billion euros over a period of ten years.