A total of 22 working groups with specialist politicians will then negotiate the details of a coalition agreement in the coming weeks. The SPD, Greens and FDP are striving to form a joint government before Christmas. It would be the first so-called traffic light coalition at the federal level.
The traffic light partners have already cleared some hurdles with their twelve-page exploratory paper presented last Friday. The statutory minimum wage is to rise once to twelve euros per hour, a key requirement of SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz. Hartz IV is to be replaced by a citizen’s benefit. There will be no speed limit on motorways, the FDP has enforced that.
But many sticking points remain. An overview:
In financial policy, the SPD, FDP and the Greens defused a central conflict during the explorations: tax policy. While the Liberals originally wanted large tax cuts including the complete abolition of the solidarity surcharge, the SPD and the Greens advocated higher taxes from top earners and the economy. The compromise: neither will come. There should be largely a standstill in tax policy.
But one big point of contention remains: budget policy – and thus the basis for all other projects. “Within the framework of the constitutional debt brake, we will guarantee the necessary future investments, especially in climate protection, digitization, education and research as well as the infrastructure,” says the exploratory paper. Exactly how this will succeed is still open and is likely to cause controversy in the coalition negotiations.
The money for this and to finance further election promises could be mobilized by a government through investment funds that are not subject to the debt brake. Here, however, the FDP would have to move, it is skeptical of such shadow budgets. In addition, the partners want to put unnecessary and climate-damaging subsidies to the test. What exactly that should be – this question is also fraught with conflict.
Climate and energy
For the Greens, the climate is the core and top issue, and Baerbock and Habeck have to make a name for themselves. “We see it as our central joint task to bring Germany on the 1.5-degree path, as the Paris climate treaty and the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court dictate,” says the exploratory paper. But how exactly this is to be achieved now has to be negotiated.
Already in the explorations it was agreed to “drastically” accelerate the expansion of renewable energies. They have already struck a few stakes, for example with a solar roof requirement for new commercial buildings and an accelerated phase-out of coal, which “ideally” should succeed by 2030. But that does not go far enough for climate protectors and parts of the Greens.
Nevertheless, the SPD, FDP and the Greens want to defuse the climate protection law in one key area. The essence of the law, which the grand coalition passed in 2019 and amended in May, is to impose annual emission reduction obligations on sectors relevant to climate protection by 2030. If a sector fails to meet the reduction target for one year, the responsible ministry has to set up an immediate program within tight deadlines in order to catch up with the target as quickly as possible.
The exploratory paper that the SPD, Greens and FDP agreed on at the end of last week breaks with this system. “We will check compliance with the climate targets on the basis of a cross-sectoral (…) multi-year overall calculation,” it says. This gives the possible coalition partners flexibility. The Greens and the SPD are likely to have problems explaining the new pragmatism to their base. In the past, the leaders of both parties had always emphasized the value of the binding targets for each individual year.
The current rise in energy prices is a further complicating factor in the climate negotiations. Prices at gas stations or for heating are skyrocketing. Here the potential coalition partners have to find ways to buffer the increase for the population without this standing in the way of the climate targets.
Pension and Social
The possible coalition partners have already decided on a number of things in terms of pension policy. There should be no cuts, that was particularly important to the SPD. “There will be no cuts in pensions and no increase in the statutory retirement age,” says the exploratory paper. In return – as requested by the FDP – there should be entry into a funded coverage of the statutory pension insurance.
Before the upcoming coalition negotiations for a traffic light alliance, FDP Vice Johannes Vogel defended the joint pension plans with the SPD and the Greens. “Now we have the chance to put the statutory pension system on two pillars by focusing more on shares,” Vogel said in an interview with the Handelsblatt. “For the SPD and the Greens, like our yes to the minimum wage, that was a really big step, it deserves respect.”
The exploratory paper provides for a stable pension level and age as well as entry into the capital coverage of the statutory pension. Economists such as Ifo boss Clemens Fuest had sharply criticized the plans. “The pension reform is simply being postponed,” he said. Vogel pointed out that many points still had to be specified in the coalition negotiations that began on Thursday. “Without real structural reform there is no secure pension,” he said.
The exploratory paper provides, for example, that pension insurance will receive ten billion euros from the federal government in 2022, which will be invested in the capital market. What exactly should happen with the money, however, is still completely open – and must be clarified in the coalition negotiations.
There are also many unanswered questions in health policy. In the exploratory paper there are only vague commitments on this, for example to more nursing staff and a reform of the flat rate per case in hospitals. For example, the question of whether and how the financially ailing statutory health and long-term care insurances should be rehabilitated is completely unresolved.
Housing and rent
Housing and construction policy could prove to be tough in the talks between the Greens, FDP and SPD. The three parties agree that more needs to be built. The goal is 400,000 new apartments annually, according to the agreement in the explorations.
However, there are still clear differences, especially in rent policy. While the SPD and the Greens would like to enforce further rent regulations, the Liberals do not want to know about it. In the exploratory paper, the conflict was postponed: “As long as not enough affordable apartments are built, the shortage of living space, especially in metropolitan areas, prevents adequate rents from building up on the housing market. We will therefore evaluate and extend the current tenant protection regulations, ”it says. What that means exactly must now be clarified in the coalition negotiations.
staff
And then there remains a major point of contention: the occupation of the ministries. The Federal Ministry of Finance, in particular, is being fiercely contested. Even before the coalition negotiations began, both the FDP and the Greens filed a claim.
Robert Habeck would like to be finance minister for the Greens and Christian Lindner for the FDP. The Liberals therefore emphasize that a climate protection ministry should be created. That would definitely be occupied by the Greens. This increased Lindner’s chances of joining the Federal Ministry of Finance. One reason why the Greens reacted very cautiously to the advance.
After a brief argument, all three parties have found their way back to the language rule that they will only talk about personal details at the very end. But one thing is clear: There is a personnel dispute on the traffic light partners.
More: CDU is looking for new heads: The call for the dual leadership is getting louder