“Assume that we are completely sorted,” said Habeck on Monday when asked about it. Habeck, who won a direct mandate in his constituency in Flensburg, left it open whether he would really become vice chancellor should the Greens agree on a coalition with the FDP and SPD or the Union.
The Greens had set out to become the leading force in the country. “We didn’t achieve that – also because of our own mistakes at the beginning of the election campaign,” said Baerbock, who had played a prominent role as Chancellor candidate since April.
The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” wrote that the two had agreed a long time ago on Habeck as Vice Chancellor in the event of a poor election result. Baerbock had their chance, it is now said in the party. With the personnel consequences one must make it clear that the Greens could not simply continue in the previous formation, but “have understood”. However, Baerbock and Habeck want to conduct the upcoming talks with potential coalition partners together.
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Habeck tried before the group meeting on Tuesday to recapture personnel speculation. At the moment, the question of who from the Greens will take over the post of Vice Chancellor is “completely irrelevant”. “We don’t even have a chancellor.”
“The reality is that the two party leaders will conduct these negotiations together and the reality is that everything has been discussed between the two and that we will make personnel decisions in the end,” said parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt. The former Green parliamentary group leader and Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin criticized the simulation games for the allocation of posts. “We are negotiating a government that will bring Germany on the 1.5-degree path,” he told the “Spiegel”. “Then it will be decided who gets which position,” he said. “That decides the party and not just two people in personal talks,” he said.
The FDP will want to have a say
Not only parts of their own party would still have to be convinced to allow Habeck to play a leading role in a future federal government. The Liberals as potential coalition partners would also want to have a say, at least with a view to a ministerial office: FDP leader Christian Lindner has made it unmistakably clear that he would like to become finance minister in the event of government participation. Exactly this position is also being discussed for Habeck.
The current debate about Habeck’s future role does not come as a complete surprise. During the election campaign, it was repeatedly speculated that the Greens might have won more votes with Habeck. Although there were doubts here and there, everyone officially stood by Baerbock – there was no open rebellion against the candidate Armin Laschet as in the Union camp. At the party conference in June, the 40-year-old was confirmed with almost 98 percent of the vote.
It was clear to Habeck fans: He too would certainly not have made it through the election campaign flawlessly. Habeck himself once said: “I would have made other mistakes.” The 52-year-old native of Lübeck, who now lives in Flensburg, has long been better known in surveys than Baerbock, who have both been at the head of the federal party since the end of January 2018. But Baerbock caught up and in the end she was candidate for chancellor.
Habeck struggled with the decision. It was the most painful day of his political career, he said a few hours after the first Green Chancellor candidacy was announced in the party’s history. He later said he had to “shake himself” for a week. Then he “fully” accepted his role.
The studied philosopher has experience in government
For real? Sometimes there are doubts about it. Why didn’t he jump aside Baerbock when she was caught in the crossfire of criticism after the plagiarism allegations? Habeck, who, in retrospect, describes this phase as a decisive one, says he was on vacation, “right, with the tent and the camping stove”. That’s how he tells it in the ARD documentary “Ways to Power”. “I wasn’t involved in the communication processes. And didn’t want to be either. Those were the five days that I wanted to recharge my batteries, ”said Habeck.
Government experience in Schleswig-Holstein: Habeck sat in a coalition with the FDP parliamentary group leader Kubicki in Kiel.
(Photo: dpa)
Unlike Baerbock, the studied philosopher Habeck has government experience, has won elections, and twice led his party into a coalition in Schleswig-Holstein. From 2004 to 2009 he was state chairman of the Greens in Schleswig-Holstein, then until 2012, parliamentary group leader in the Kiel state parliament. In 2012 he moved to the government bank, was Vice Prime Minister in the North and Minister for Energy, Agriculture, Environment, Rural Areas and Digitization until 2018, before moving on to the Federal Party in Berlin.
He was quickly seen as a bearer of hope, as someone who could attract the Greens nationwide beyond their regular electorate. He is different from other political giants, and he consciously cultivates this image. There are photos of him that show him hiking in the mudflats or in the midst of sunflowers and dandelions. Usually he appears a bit more casual than other party leaders, he never wears a tie.
Habeck is “not the typical alpha male who thinks he knows everything,” it is said in his environment. It is typical for him to question supposed certainties and to admit that he does not have an answer to everything, but an attitude. “There is a large bourgeois spectrum that feels addressed by Habeck’s way, his pragmatism and his convictions.”
Whenever the big picture is at stake, when Habeck promises to oppose a “lame federal government” with a new, green energy, when he replaces “mediocrity, tiredness and resentment” with “our pragmatic idealism” and “small and small the coalition ”wants to end, Habeck can always run up to top form.
Authentic, but also not free from mistakes
Habeck is not one who sees his role in constantly criticizing his political opponent. At first the base grumbled that Habeck was spreading “too much ego” and “too little humility”. So it happened that he later stressed one word in particular, especially after successful elections like the 2019 European elections: humility. However, there can be no question of humility these days.
With its ruling on climate protection, the Federal Constitutional Court paved the way for people to leave the beaten track, according to Habeck. But politics deal with questions that are actually no longer. What climate protection costs is not even the question. “The question is: What does no climate protection cost?” The FDP, he said, was trying to find the “stupid contrast” between German and European interests, the Union the “stupid contrast between economic growth and climate protection” and the SPD between justice and progress. There is a mood of change in society, said Habeck. But “if we are not careful, then we will get a government that does not fit in with society”.
For Habeck, the Union propagates the “stupid contrast between economic growth and climate protection”.
(Photo: imago / Rainer Weisflog)
Some of Habeck’s speeches were always surprisingly left-wing, although he himself does not want to know anything about this right-left scheme. His favorite topics of the past few months: the call for more investment and the further development of the debt brake. He supports the market economy, but it should be socio-ecological. He wants to give new rules to hyperglobalized capitalism, as he calls it.
Active industrial policy doesn’t just mean cruelty
Like Baerbock, Habeck has repeatedly called for “strong guard rails” in climate protection, which, however, does not only mean regulatory requirements, for example for CO2 emissions from cars, but also a strong promotion of innovation in order to accelerate the necessary transformation, especially of energy-intensive industries, and so on to compete with China, for example.
Active industrial policy, as the Greens call it, does not mean that there will be atrocities if the Greens get into government. Funding instruments for the production of climate-neutral steel are also to be understood here.
The Greens have relaxed their relationship with energy-intensive industry significantly in recent years. They have long been in regular contact with entrepreneurs, for example through their economic advisory board, whose members certify that they are constructively looking for solutions. The reconciliation of ecology and economy – that is by no means just the credo of Baden-Württemberg’s Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann.
More: Where the trouble spots of the possible coalitions are