He wanted to get away from it all. The splendid solitude of the tiny North Sea island of Hooge was a momentary refuge from the waves of political tumult buffeting his country. But when Germany’s vice chancellor Robert Habeck returned from his holiday on Thursday, a group of furious farmers prevented his ferry from docking on the mainland. Germany’s 2024 began as 2023 ended: with public confidence in the government at a low ebb.

The anger of farmers is currently the most visible expression of Germany’s disillusionment with the ruling coalition. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration has manoeuvred itself into a corner from which there is no easy way out. Its problems escalated when a landmark court ruling last year deemed the government’s budget plan unconstitutional, after the coalition attempted to reallocate unused borrowing from the pandemic to a climate fund. The coalition therefore had to scramble to fill the resulting 60-billion-euro hole in the public purse – and begin to enact unpopular austerity measures. That included a proposed annual cut of nearly 1 billion euros for the agricultural sector via the removal of tax exemptions on agricultural diesel and vehicles.

Farmers reacted as you’d expect to a measure which threatens their livelihood – and is designed to solve the government’s creative accounting. In response to the announcement, Germany’s farmers descended on the capital in December. Central Berlin was brought to a standstill by 1,700 tractors. Cem Özdemir, minister for food and agriculture was booed when he tried to address the angry gathering, and farmers threatened a ‘hot January’ of unprecedented protest if the proposals weren’t scrapped in full.

The government has since announced a U-turn on the tax exemptions on agricultural vehicles, which won’t be scrapped. But those on diesel will still go ahead, only now in a staggered fashion with the full tax burden coming into place in 2026 rather than immediately. This is supposed to give farmers time to adjust to 21,48 cents extra per litre.

The announcement came on Wednesday and may well have triggered the incident that delayed Habeck’s return on Thursday. Compared to the tractor gathering in Berlin, it was relatively small in scale, with around 80 agricultural vehicles and fewer than 300 protestors, with 25 to 30 attempting to interfere with the minister’s ferry or board it.

But it was a close call, ‘if the decision [to undock and return to the island] had been made one minute later, the ferry would have been stormed,’ the head of the operating company told the Germany media, ‘the mob would have been aboard with unthinkable consequences.’ Videos of security forces desperately battling to keep people at bay and the police’s admission that they had to use pepper spray to do so projected an image of beleaguerment for the government.

It is to Habeck’s credit that he tried to speak with his would-be assailants in a situation that must have felt deeply threatening, and he has since asked to speak to representatives of the protest. The police deemed a direct encounter with the crowds unwise at the time, and they in turn refused to send a small delegation to the vice chancellor. While expressing concerns about the heated ‘mood in the country’ and the security of others who unlike him don’t have police protection wherever they go, Habeck is still seeking to engage with farmers in the region and the country more widely.

Others were less diplomatic in their response. Cem Özdemir, minister for the sector, went on the morning programme of Germany’s public broadcaster ARD and called the protesters ‘fanatics’ who have ‘wet dreams of insurrection’. The government called the incident ‘shameful’.

Of course threatening behaviour towards politicians is utterly deplorable, but behind these desperate measures is desperate fear. German farmers have pointed out for decades that their financial situation is unsustainable. Studies show that they work the longest hours of any vocational group. While those running their own agricultural businesses earn 37,702 euros a year, only slightly below the national average, people employed in the sector are on just 18,509 on average. State subsidies and benefits account for around half of agricultural businesses revenue – without them they cannot exist.

So it’s hardly surprising that changes as drastic as those currently proposed by the government cause visceral fear among Germany’s farming community, and inflammatory language from politicians won’t change that. From the high horse of financial security it is easy to demand ‘words’ and ‘arguments’ rather than ‘loutishness’ and ‘violence’ as the Green party’s Annalena Baerbock has done. She, after all, receives over 25,000 a month for being foreign minister, far more than an agricultural labourer gets a year.

German farmers don’t dream of insurrection but of basic financial security and a reasonable degree of agency when it comes to their economic and professional future. Removing essential subsidies without consultation is not only pulling the rug out from under their feet but a breach of the democratic contract between the government and the electorate – the very thing the disruptive farmers stand accused of.

If the German government can’t or won’t come up with a more constructive response to the protest than condemnation, it needs to be prepared for more desperate acts of protest from its farming communities. Their professional association, the Bauernverband, has distanced itself from the ferry stormers, calling this type of protest a ‘no go’, but that won’t lessen the problems its members face.

A look at their Dutch neighbours gives a glimpse of what might be in store. In the Netherlands, a similar lack of respect and care for the agricultural sector has led to repeated disruptive action by farmers.

In addition to high levels of disruption and rogue protest action, there is further danger in this on a political level as populists and extremists stand ready to exploit and inflame the situation. The far-left MP Sahra Wagenknecht called Habeck’s comparatively conciliatory response ‘whiny’ and ‘embarrassing’. Far-right groups like ‘Der III. Weg’ (The Third Way) have called upon their members to ‘Become part of the protests! Resist! Stand up and support the farmers’ revolt!’ At the moment there is clear blue water between these radicals and farmers, but if there is no response from the government to farmers’ despair, there is a risk that they will become disaffected with democracy.

The German government would do well to come to terms with the idea that the concerns of farmers are real and that there won’t be respite from them – even on Hooge island – unless they act.