Berlin In the end it got personal. In the last three minutes of his one and a half hour speech at the FDP party conference, Christian Lindner spoke about himself. He has now been party chairman for ten years and has had to endure some personal attacks, but it is worth it to him.
Lindner led the liberals from the extra-parliamentary opposition into government responsibility and secured the office of federal finance minister. But he has more plans for the FDP. “The order has not yet been fulfilled,” said Lindner. “Together we are still at the beginning.”
The personal end of the speech was a request for approval for him as party leader – despite all the anger about the traffic light coalition and the painful defeats in the state elections in recent months. The delegates complied with the request. Lindner was confirmed in office for another two years with 88 percent.
In the last election he had received 93 percent. A small minus, but no lesson from the delegates. The mood among the liberals has improved since the FDP was able to assert itself in the coalition committee at the end of March and the poll numbers have risen again to seven to eight percent.
Lindner had given a rather tame speech at the party conference. There was the greatest applause when he praised the defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who is to become the FDP’s top candidate in the European elections.
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Otherwise he hammered down the positions of the Liberals. He called on the traffic light coalition to be economical. This is necessary in order to comply with the debt brake and to combat high inflation, said the Federal Minister of Finance. “Some things may be desirable, but at least at the moment they cannot be financed.”
The defense politician is to become the top candidate of the FDP in the European elections.
(Photo: IMAGO/Future Image)
The budget deliberations in the federal government are still intensive, Lindner described the unusually long budget dispute in the coalition. Since there has been no agreement for weeks, the Minister of Finance has refrained from presenting key figures for the 2024 budget. Instead, the draft budget is now to be negotiated by June.
Overall, the ministries had requested an additional 70 billion euros. While Lindner wants to give more money to the Defense Ministry, he curbs the wishes of other departments such as the Family Ministry or the Foreign Office. You also have to talk about savings, said Lindner. He also thinks it is necessary to get inflation – “a tough beast” – under control.
“Now the boomerang of the unsound CDU financial policy is coming back”
Despite the austerity appeals, Lindner refrained from clear criticism of the Social Democrats and the Greens. Instead, he blamed the Union for the difficult budgetary situation because it had repeatedly decided on new spending programs during the period of low interest rates. “Now the boomerang of the unsound CDU financial policy is coming back,” said Lindner.
Lindner ruled out tax increases. State revenues are expected to rise to more than one trillion euros for the first time in the coming year, said the finance minister. However, the money is not enough to finance existing legal obligations. “Politicians have to relearn how to get by with the money that citizens make available to them.”
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This is also a warning to the coalition partners, which Lindner also linked to criticism of the Union. The FDP chairman criticized the CDU’s considerations of raising the tax rate for top earners to finance relief for the middle class. “I wish the Union inventiveness, but we will not follow every wrong idea.”
CDU tax plan is “black-green relaxation exercise”
Lindner also rejected the proposal for an inheritance tax reform. Additional burdens would damage the competitiveness of family businesses. Lindner sees “black-green relaxation exercises” in the CDU plans.
In his speech, the FDP leader went through the many points of contention in the traffic light coalition. The building energy law of Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) with the rules for heating replacement is “not yet what should be decided in the end by the Bundestag”.
Because of the conflict about basic child security, Lindner referred to the already increased benefits. The Finance Minister does not want to give the additional twelve billion euros demanded by Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens).
But despite the many controversial issues, Lindner defended the traffic light coalition. Finally, the Liberals were able to push through a few things at the last coalition committee. Despite the resistance of the Greens, 144 motorway projects are to be built at an accelerated rate, “1000 kilometers” as Lindner calculated in his speech.
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And the traffic light wants to defuse the strict climate targets for the individual sectors such as the transport sector. Reasonable from Lindner’s point of view. If, for example, a ton of CO2 could be saved more easily in the industrial sector, then it should be done there. Otherwise, “draconian interventions” threatened in a few years. Then it’s not about a speed limit, but about driving bans, said Lindner.
Lindner sees highway blockades as “physical violence”
Lindner compared the fact that the traffic light coalition had to negotiate for three days for these decisions with a comparison to the grand coalition. Union and SPD had negotiated nights and then the Easter rest – a short lockdown in the corona pandemic – was suggested, but it turned out to be unworkable. “At least it’s worth the wait for us,” said Lindner.
Instead of working too hard on the Greens and SPD, climate activists in addition to the Union attracted the anger of the FDP leader. No motive, no matter how noble, can hide the fact that highway blockades are “physical violence,” he said.
The demands of the “Last Generation” group for a speed limit and the continuation of the nine-euro ticket are “modest”, since Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has done much more for the climate. From Lindner’s point of view, the following applies to the “last generation”: “Small ideas, big trouble – the other way around would be better.”
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