The Greens have “meaningful projects” in their election manifesto, for example in the area of education, but they have to be “assisted” with solid financing, says FDP party leader Lindner (center).
(Photo: Reuters)
Berlin At their extraordinary party congress a week before the general election, the Free Democrats proclaimed the goal of becoming the third-strongest party – and thus overtaking the Greens in the last few meters.
The FDP MP in the European Parliament, Nicola Beer, saw third place “within reach” in her opening speech and party leader Lindner urged the liberals present that the gap was only three percentage points according to current polls.
The challenge to the Greens, who held their own extraordinary party congress only a few kilometers away in Berlin, should also position the FDP strategically for the likely complex coalition negotiations.
Christian Lindner, who would like to become finance minister in a new government, fished an anecdote from his rhetorical pocket about his political competitor Robert Habeck (the Greens), who is also traded for the office of finance minister.
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Habeck had campaigned for the rededication of the word “debts”, but they should be called “loans”, according to Lindner – a story that did not fail to achieve the desired effect and caused laughter in the hall. Secretary General Volker Wissing also said that the Greens “want to impose bans on people,” but that German inventions must be promoted instead.
“Assisting” the Greens with financial policy
At the same time, according to Lindner, the Greens also have “meaningful projects” in their election program, for example in the area of education, but they have to be “assisted” in how they can “solidly finance” these projects, according to Lindner. A statement that allows conclusions to be drawn about the preferred division of tasks in a possible future government coalition.
Lindner also responded indirectly to the question of who the FDP could help to become Chancellor after September 26th: “The status of the strongest party has never resulted in an automatic claim to leadership,” said Lindner.
Even in the event of a social democratic election victory, a Chancellor Armin Laschet (CDU) supported by the FDP would be a conceivable scenario. “This year the majority results from the content,” says Lindner.
At the same time, however, the party leader avoided committing to coalitions before the election. The CDU would have called for options to be excluded, but: “We do not accept any instructions from this Union,” said Lindner.
In terms of content, Lindner’s speech was a summary of the calls formulated during the election campaign for a state that should give the “green light” for innovative entrepreneurial projects more quickly, for a more flexible retirement age and for compliance with the debt brake.
In addition to the pandemic, the biggest brakes on social freedom are above all the bureaucracy: he wants to declare war on the “rampant bureaucracy”, according to Lindner. In addition to Lindner, the top candidates of the FDP for the upcoming elections to the House of Representatives in Berlin and the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had traveled.
Mobilization for state elections
While Berlin’s top candidate Sebastian Czaja drummed against the referendum on the expropriation of large housing corporations, René Domke relied on digitization for the Schwerin state elections: “We want high-speed internet on every milk can,” demanded Domke. The FDP has not been represented in the Schwerin state parliament since 2011, but is moving around the five percent threshold in current surveys.
Support for the FDP also came via video from the Netherlands and Estonia. The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte from the bourgeois liberal party “Volkspartij voor Vrijheid” and his counterpart, the Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas from the Estonian Reform Party, wished the liberals every success in the general election.
“Success” for the FDP would be to get as close as possible to the Greens, possibly even to overtake them in the final spurt of the election campaign. At the moment, however, the difference between the parties is between 6.5 and three percentage points, depending on the survey.
The AfD could also overtake the FDP – while the FDP is at 9.5 to 13 percent in the various surveys, the AfD is constant at around eleven percent.
More: Green Party Congress in Berlin: “End the messing around with the grand coalition”