At least since the day he won the federal election, Olaf Scholz has seemed as if an invisible sword of Damocles is hanging over him. He acts even more wooden and restrained than usual.
His timidity, especially when it comes to Ukraine, meets with little international understanding. Within a few weeks, not only has the entire aura of his progressive coalition vanished. The international reputation of the Federal Republic of Germany has also been battered.
Under Scholz, the long-standing Germany bonus threatens to become a Germany malus. The impression of a country that has made serious strategic mistakes, overloaded itself with promises as if to compensate and then didn’t deliver, goes well beyond the issue of Ukraine.
All of these are developments that nobody would have associated with Olaf Scholz until recently. His name stood for efficiency. Now the question is whether Scholz even has the leadership gene. Or whether he is very power-conscious due to his inner aspirations, but cannot implement them due to his nature.
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So it seems like cowardice that he has so often used Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, his vice chancellor and foreign minister, to announce sensitive messages in recent weeks.
Scholz obviously lacks assertiveness in his own SPD faction
In terms of foreign policy, Scholz is increasingly appearing as a puppet of his party’s left wing. The party’s reluctance to provide adequate support to Ukraine and its tendency to actually still support Russia have nothing in common with the moral and enlightened aspirations of a modern social-democratic party – let alone with an adequate understanding of international solidarity.
The one strong moment of the previous Scholz chancellorship, the time change speech, is picked apart by the party according to all the rules of the art. Party colleagues such as SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich or Ralf Stegner, parliamentary group leader in the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament, seriously characterize the restoration of our country’s basic defense capability as “armament”. That will make the war criminals in the Kremlin very happy.
Our “shadow chancellor” obviously lacks the necessary assertiveness in his own SPD faction.
Even with the legitimate demands of the federal states for coordination and financial support from the federal government in dealing with the flow of refugees from Ukraine, there is no word of authority from Scholz, not even a task force. Nevertheless, he symbolically sticks to his briefcase.
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A dark intuition is now creeping in among German citizens: Scholz seems to be deliberately steering towards a third chancellorship of sitting out – in the style of Kohl and Merkel. He does this even though this very course is forbidden because of the previous, very long sit-out periods.
But Scholz studied Angela Merkel very closely in preparation for his chancellorship. Merkel had distinguished herself as the nation’s anesthesiologist, trying to calm people down and, if possible, never demanding anything from them.
The problem for Scholz is that he cannot save himself through his years in office with his ostrich policy, especially towards Russia.
The impression of the loner is reinforced by the fact that the previous distribution of roles in the core of the Scholz universe has been unhinged. Wolfgang Schmidt, State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance until the end of 2021, was responsible for the task of social perpetuum mobile for the former Finance Minister Scholz for many years.
He was always able to skilfully stage his boss. Because of Schmidt’s job as head of the Federal Chancellery, that’s far too short.
The SPD has lost its momentum from the previous federal government
It also doesn’t help that Scholz is responsible for some obvious mistakes. Nancy Faeser, the Minister of the Interior, seems to be overwhelmed by her new organizational task.
And Christine Lambrecht, originally acting as Federal Minister of the Interior, suddenly mutated into Federal Defense Minister in the Postenschacher, for which she unfortunately has no qualifications.
That has political consequences. The SPD has lost its momentum from the previous federal government, when it stood out positively with its ministerial team compared to the CDU/CSU.
It is also problematic that Scholz does not really seem to be interested in other people, although that is actually the core of every politician’s life. When he approaches others, it seems very programmed.
This is also proven by his regular reference to the word “respect” and “social cohesion”. Both have the effect of a linguistic punch intended to offer him a protective shield.
The fact that Scholz is a complete novice in foreign policy reinforces the impression of closedness. Most Germans would currently wish for the clarity of a Helmut Schmidt, along with his moral compass and the courage to confess.
As if to compensate for his inability, Scholz now often comes across as Chancellor – whether towards economists or towards critical MPs, whom he described as “boys and girls”.
Worse still, although he is the retarding element in Europe when it comes to Ukraine, he regularly claims, contrary to fact, that he is actually leading Europe and that all other nations are following the German course.
scholz‘ Role in the cum-ex scandal must be dealt with properly
As far as the sword of Damocles mentioned above is concerned, Olaf Scholz acts as if he knew that something very unusual by German standards could be heading towards him: the indictment of an incumbent German Chancellor for various criminal offences.
In the realms of the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office, attempts are still being made to sweep the problems under the carpet, which Olaf Scholz, as a former Hamburg mayor, caused by his unprofessional behavior in favor of the Hamburg Warburg Bank in Cum -ex-scandal has traded.
The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt recently proved that there is another way. She brought charges against Peter Feldmann, the mayor there, for taking advantage in office.
Not only do Scholz’s memory gaps about Warburg completely contradict his own perfectionism. Above all, a full professional should never have met the former Warburg supervisory board chairman alone in the scandal, i.e. without employees and responsible specialist officials.
Anyone who does so at least gives the impression of being evil and in any case acts contrary to any usual German administrative practice.
The alleged Hamburg swindling proves ugly how German politics ultimately controls itself via the judicial authorities under its control. That is not sustainable for a mature democracy like ours.
A clean, party-politically untouched processing of the Scholz/Warburg case is absolutely necessary for the future of democratic capitalism. And the SPD should have a special interest in that.
The author: Stephan-Götz Richter is editor-in-chief and publisher of The Globalist and director of the Global Ideas Center in Berlin.
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