The Union never thought much of “post-heroism”. She was committed to the “heroism of election day”, so she paid homage to Angela Merkel when she was still the queen of the votes. With her departure as party leader, the search for “pre-heroism” began, for new heroes, but the CDU / CSU lost them. Now Austria’s Sebastian Kurz is also out of action as an idol, who resigned from his job as chancellor after greasy corruption procedures related to the apparently corruptible newspaper “Austria”, but remains ÖVP boss and “co-chancellor”.
The Viennese populist has awakened the longings of many in the Union: his youthfulness, his guts, his ambition (which some call lack of conscience). Tilman Kuban, head of the Junge Union, recently called for a “German Sebastian Kurz”. Cubanism in the world saw Markus Söder as the incarnation of this type of politician. And quite a few whispered that a “List Markus Söder” analogous to “List Sebastian Kurz” would be something. And now? After this short-and-small action, one can only try to say: “Wherever you look, there you will also fly.”
(Photo: Bloomberg)
In Vienna, the conservative ÖVP, now with Alexander Schallenberg, remains the Chancellor’s party because the Greens, who strive for higher ethics, participate in everything at the lower level of everyday politics. Even legal investigations against the former leading figure Kurz are bravely endured here. It serves to maintain power disguised as “responsibility”. “The government crisis is over,” announced the Green Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen. And now please don’t argue.
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The CDU candidate flop Armin Laschet builds on such flexibility in “Jamaica” with the Greens. But that won’t do him any good in the CDU presidium today. All candidates for his boss position are warming up, from Jens Spahn to Norbert Röttgen to Friedrich Merz. And veteran Wolfgang Schäuble warns against questioning the members. Conclusion: Too much democracy can evidently lead to confusion. Ask your doctor or pharmacist.
For a while in Germany there was talk of a “Saarland wave” because important federal ministers came from the small, beautiful federal state. But for defense expert Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 59, who could have become Federal Chancellor, and for Peter Altmaier, 63, who recently “verified” in vain as economic manager, it is now over. The two are giving up their parliamentary mandates, which allows young talents like digital expert Nadine Schön to move up.
The re-awakened SPD does not have this problem of advancement. A hundred young professionals came to the Bundestag on the Scholz train. All in all, this weakens the hope that Heiko Maas, who is starving as foreign minister – the third Saarlander in the game – would also renounce his mandate. One thing is clear: Maas will no longer be in the “West Wing” of power.
In today’s negotiations between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP about a “traffic light coalition”, the economy Veronika Grimm and Andreas Kuhlmann, head of the federally owned German Energy Agency (Dena), are sharing their expectations for climate protection policy. The two are promoting Dena’s lead study “Aim for Climate Neutrality”, also with a large Handelsblatt discussion.
- The next federal government must act “more decisively and faster”, says Grimm: “One of the first measures should be to completely cancel the surcharge under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).”
- The economy relies on a general rethink in politics: “We have to come to a system that focuses on emissions trading.”
- Kuhlmann, in turn, refers to the study’s 84 recommendations for action. A “clear focus on the economic framework” is needed, and more attention must be paid to efficiency when it comes to subsidies. In the end, according to Kuhlmann, “there will be no avoiding commands and prohibitions on the way to climate neutrality.”
- The Dena boss calls for creative concepts on site: “We should think about city toll systems and of course about expanding local public transport, especially in rural areas.” Line helping those who sell cars.
Whatever the case: “The beginning is the most important part of the work,” said Plato.
It may have played a small role, the latest revelation affair of Andrej Babiš, 67. In an unsuitable place, in the “Pandora Papers”, the name of the Czech prime minister appeared. He is said to have bought real estate in France through dubious letterbox companies in 2009. That is unfortunate for someone who walks in the flower-white garb of the anti-corruption fighter. In any case, the entrepreneur and his ANO surprisingly lost the parliamentary election at the weekend: With only 27.2 percent, they only came in second. The center-right alliance Spolu (“Together”) won the vote with 27.7 percent. In third place with 15.5 percent is the alliance of the pirate and mayor parties. The Babiš opponents could form a coalition.
But it is unclear who President Milos Zeman will entrust to form a government. The 77-year-old was admitted to the Central Military Hospital in Prague on Sunday after meeting Babiš for the first time. There he is in the intensive care unit.
The global minimum tax of 15 percent, on which 136 states have agreed, should not fail in the USA. At least that’s the latest news from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. She also speaks out on the dispute over public finances in the United States. After Congress and government have decided on spending plans and tax policies, it is their responsibility to determine who pays the bill. This is routine work for a household, says Yellen, “we should talk about the government’s fiscal policy.”
(Photo: imago images / Montage Handelsblatt)
And then there is Marcel Fratzscher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), who praised “green inflation” in the Handelsblatt guest commentary. In his play he worries about broken supply chains and raw material shortages, but not about higher inflation: “It is welcome and necessary for the transformation of the German economy.” Everyone wanted more climate protection, so Fratzscher, which is why one cannot complain at the same time if higher prices better reflect the harmful behavior of people and companies.
If, as has been calculated many times, CO2 pricing leads to an inflation rate that is 0.5 points higher, that is unproblematic in the medium term at 1.9 percent. The greatest threat is climate change itself as well as “global trade conflicts that it has triggered”. Conclusion: As Kurt Tucholsky writes so beautifully: “Experiences are not passed on – everyone has to do them alone.”
I wish you a good start to the week.
I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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