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tv   Interview - Konstantin Kuhle Self-determination in all aspects of life  Deutsche Welle  November 12, 2017 5:02am-5:15am CET

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upcoming winter rains are expected to bring some relief. mother is hiv positive. she was infected at birth. she probably won't live to the age of five. the program dream aims to prevent the mother to child transmission of hiv. the german aids foundation is supporting the project and muslim be. given a baby a future make a donation. a life. today i'm talking to constantine cooler head of the german f.t.p. party's national youth organization welcome to our show mr cool thank you.
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for coolest akula you're only twenty eight years old you have already completed two state examinations in law and are a newly elected delegate of the german bundestag between the two of you there are so many nice jobs out there why did it have to be politics. well the good thing is i learned a different profession first time a lawyer by training i might not have worked as one for long just for a while after my second state examination but it's important to me to have a profession i trained for life you never know when your term in office only lasts for four years and it may well be over then but even if it is there will be other options for me but for now it's great to have this opportunity at twenty eight i mean the average age of bundestag m.p.'s is about fifty so being able to contribute at twenty eight is a real gift a great honor. but you laid the groundwork early on when you join germany's young liberals when you were only thirteen other boys that age usually spend their time in front of a computer or at a sports club what on earth drove you into their arms at thirteen dollars with
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a. question i did all those things too i checked out a sports club games on my computer tried out acting private tutoring i tried all sorts of things but somehow i always felt they didn't give me a chance to talk properly about the things i was really interested in and that i wasn't really being taken seriously as a young person and then thanks to internet connections that finally reached our village i discovered politics because of the forums run by the young liberal group i ended up joining could discuss politics not really grand to me i met people there who took me seriously they treated me as an equal and the enthusiasm that triggered in me still hasn't faded that. the guys the. after school you went to a private university to study law were public universities not good enough for you it needs to play. there's a great public university in getting in right by where we lived i think lower is a subject you can study particularly well at public universities and it means you can meet people studying other subjects not just law. only law students.
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convinced me was its international focus we had to spend one trimester abroad i went to paris and the support system for students a little different there but i quickly got a sense that you could really achieve a lot if you had the necessary ambition and that really appealed to me but i don't think you necessarily have to study at a private university. what's much more important is really knowing what you want to study. and once you've decided on a subject you have to figure out which university. just blindly choose a private university that's not the way to go about it of course. you're very young and very career driven that fits well to the f.t.p.'s image of a party for high earners one that was actually trying to shed what makes you so different from the liberal party members that were voted out of parliament in twenty thirteen as it's vital that you could think that looking at my resume but
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ambition and career orientation aren't necessarily negative. i've always made a point of trying out different things and long before completing school when i was sixteen seventeen i spent a year in south america as an exchange student in ecuador. i lived with her family there went to a local school and spent a lot of time learning spanish and meeting people in the attic completely different perspective on life. i think that taught me to be a bit more relaxed about the whole question of being just career oriented or not it was an exciting time just like my time in france was so i can't really accept that criticism because i have always been aware of life outside of germany and even europe. and i think. there's combination of i'm interested in foreign cultures i'm interested in foreign languages on the one hand as well as an understanding for the way economics work on the other is what is always defined
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t.f.t. be a party. but i also don't think you can judge a person's character just by their party membership i think that's a stretch of what i love this club has. been all too much labeling you know absolutely i read online that the f.t.p. political guiding principle is freedom whatever the circumstances does that mean freedom in the face of state opposition. up pretty early on i began to ask myself why the liberal party why the f.d.p. . and when you trace it back of course it because of what the liberals wrested from the states bit by bit in the nineteenth century. freedom of opinion freedom of the press. taking that sentiment and transferring it to today's world the question arises how much video surveillance how much telecommunications surveillance is acceptable in an age when we spend so much time online. that is an important point
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to make when it comes to informational self-determination because if you feel like you're being watched twenty four seven you will change your behavior without even noticing it and that's not what self-determination is supposed to mean that's why yes in the west case informational self-determination must also be asserted in the face of state opposition take major corporations think of tax evasion or social networks they've created a public space that is practically replaced real public life then autonomy must also be defended against the private sector this is great but it's difficult to do climate change which is a bone of contention for the new german government coalition talks there the slogan freedom whatever the circumstances isn't going to get you very far especially when it comes to voluntary commitments nothing's happening on the paris agreement disappointing isn't it and. it's disappointing that the debate on this issue is being argued very narrowly everyone agreed to the climate goals in paris and
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rightly so that anyone who takes a different approach to measures is made out to be the bad guy i don't think it's that simple above all we need to understand that in regions like the one i'm from lower saxony other measures are needed in the cities. to measures include state intervening yes of course it'd be much too easy to say our climate policies could be summarized as freedom whatever the circumstances that would be stopping short of the mark we have a programme for climate policy i honestly have to admit i wish the f.t.p. would take this issue a bit further i sometimes feel the f.t.p. is a bit too silent on environmental. tics and in how they communicate to the public i hope that the coalition talks will help us to see that the environment can also be an issue for a liberal party though i wouldn't say it's my favorite issue i'm more interested in domestic and legal affairs as well as european politics but the f.t.p. still needs to drill deeper into the subject of climate policy is definitely.
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via either way freedom or state we are wrecking our planet mr cool and isn't it finally time to fix a date to phase out combustion engines problem. and we're happy to talk about dates but this date must take into consideration that there's a difference between rural and urban areas and that it makes a difference whether this state is set by the state or if engineers who understand the technology much better very example than i do say this is the date we walked. we also need to consider that in constituencies like mine there are communities for whom it makes a difference if i say he mobility or if i say the combustion engine will be allowed here for a transitional period it's great that we can talk with the green party about how long this transition period might last and the environment definitely needs to be factored in biassed. green party has just taken its demand for
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a fixed target off the table what's your response. it was that he will respect that and think it's a great concession from the green party i would want my own party and the party leadership to respond to this concession with a concession of their own but that's all i can say about it because i'm not part of the actual negotiations on the environment so i'm not in the loop but i find it incredibly decent of the green party to meet us halfway like that and i hope that we can respond in kind to not gloat like the c.s.u. did saying oh well it was an idiotic demand in the first place i just can't understand why they see as you did that that's not how you reach an agreement and. you hinted at it earlier freedom or state do you think paying taxes is a good thing. well when you look at your payslip your tax declaration then your first thought usually is wow that's a lot. but when you look at how the country works and how we want a functioning police force and a free education system with universal basic services them sure taxes are
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a part of that the question is how high are the taxes and what incentives to these taxes provide for example for research or for education haven't we got an awful lot of people paying out of a fifty percent of what they own it taxes and social security contributions a system in which people who work very hard have to pay so much and that's why we've worked out changes we want to make in tax policies the liberal party isn't against taxes but we need to talk about the way they are structured. some of your supporters would disagree do you accept the fact that there are lots of corporations and very rich people who find legal loopholes to cut their taxes right there. when it comes to major corporations evading taxes i agree they shouldn't be able to and massive amounts of money here and then avoid financing the common good there are also some interesting models proposed by environmentalist. he said but there's nothing you can do if mulder in the netherlands and luxemburg keep saying.
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well we have to have a serious talk about the advantages these states get from the free movement of capital for example they have advantages and operate their business model on the basis that capital that they want to keep there can be transferred anywhere to be invested and that advantage has to be linked to certain issues and that's where we have to talk about taxes i think a lot of what emanuel makassar jested for the european union is worth considering why doesn't germany enter into negotiations with france on tax policies i think that'd be a good thing his initiative shows that it is possible to consider new ideas in your so maybe this new window to have this conversation with france is an opportunity to change how major corporations event. access. there are so many things to talk about but i'm afraid our time is up so to close our interview we now come to our open sentences and ask you to finish them for us.
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what i like about horse a horse is i'm best when he actually sticks to his positions. and then what i don't like about the green party is. they gloated when the f.t.p. lost all its seats in parliament in twenty thirteen. espied parliamentary group leader. an interesting person i would like to have a coffee with some time as long as she doesn't smack me one afterwards in twenty years i will be. happy hopefully. constantine cooler thank you very much thank you. try and him i wasn't always successful i wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth i had to find success they also came from.
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health. and hearings to law. solidarity. they fall by the wayside when the gap between bridge and form grows. life in an equal society is. the divide starting november fifteenth on d. w. . meet the germans new and surprising aspects of noise and culture in germany. us american keep news out take a look at germany it is interesting that their traditions every day lives and language can just come out of my life. so i'm young good yes.

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