Christian Lindner went into the election campaign with the promise of tax relief.
(Photo: dpa)
The FDP and the Greens won the Nobel Prize for Political Chemistry. It began on the evening of the election when the FDP chairman Christian Lindner invited the Greens leader Annalena Baerbock to exploratory talks and she promptly got involved. That already looked agreed. Since then there have been many green and yellow rounds. Nothing leaked out.
The traffic light sounding together with the SPD was now announced by the Greens, the FDP supported them and added to the timing. But as harmonious as everything works – for the FDP there is further a path to such a government than for the SPD and the Greens.
Unlike Red-Green, Lindner went into the election campaign with the promise of tax relief. He will not be able to let go of that if he does not want to disappoint the electorate and his own party base. The SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, Greens co-leader Robert Habeck and Baerbock should know that.
A look at Rhineland-Palatinate shows that. The FDP has been ruling there successfully for years in a traffic light coalition. But at the ballot box that did not pay off for the Liberals in the state elections.
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The bridge in the Bund is still wide and long. So one should wait for the judge’s verdict from Karlsruhe with the complete abolition of the Solis. Then one could implement the Greens demand for a basic child security, which would also bring the families ten billion euros relief. The three will certainly be able to agree on a large investment fund.
In the case of the share pension required by the FDP, it will be a question of whether it will be voluntary or mandatory. With regard to climate protection, the negotiators have already made statements that they have come closer. Issues such as a higher CO2 price and super write-offs for investments in digitization and climate protection could play a major role here. The minimum wage of twelve euros, one of Scholz’s core demands, will certainly come, albeit in stages.
Germany needs a new departure
What must not happen: that the traffic light parties only agree on the lowest common denominator. Germany needs a new start in so many areas. A lot has simply fallen into place in Merkel’s 16 years. But anyone who wants to and has to do a lot of tidying up needs energy and the determination to act. This is currently the biggest difference to a possible Jamaica coalition with the Union.
CDU and CSU are exhausted. The Diadochian fights between Jens Spahn, Norbert Röttgen and Friedrich Merz are in full swing. Armin Laschet increasingly looks like a king without a country. The Bavarian Markus Söder gave Laschet the fatal blow when he declared that the traffic light sounding would de facto mean the end for Jamaica.
Obviously it was difficult for the FDP and the Greens to get involved in a Union that is so unsorted. Lindner has not forgotten how Söder and Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus shot in the election campaign against the FDP.
And the FDP chairman is certainly not in the mood for a Chancellor Söder. With Laschet he formed a government at the state level and wanted to do so at the federal level as well. The only problem is that not everyone in the Union shares this wish.
If the Union does not break out in great harmony after all, everything will come down to a set of traffic lights. Large parts of the economy still want Jamaica.
But even experienced family entrepreneurs like Martin Herrenknecht currently refer to the Union as a “chaotic shop”. The well-known business magazine “Economist” spoke out in favor of a traffic light on the grounds that the Union simply couldn’t get it baked.
The SPD left wanted a different alliance
The traffic light is not yet dry. It holds imponderables. The SPD left around party leaders Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans and Vice Kevin Kühnert wanted a left-wing alliance. Lindner boldly referred to as Luftikus, and Walter-Borjans spoke of a liberal “voodoo economy”.
They would like to have a different republic with a BMW association and a high wealth tax. Much now depends on Olaf Scholz, who only gave the SPD the election victory. But a look at the history of social democracy shows that its chancellors have always failed because of the left.
It is true that the FDP is taking a high risk should it enter into such an alliance. But a party that is committed to competition should see this as an opportunity. And a new union is not in sight.
More: Greens and FDP want to sound out the traffic light coalition on Thursday – no “complete rejection” of Jamaica