FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing (on the stairs, lr), Greens federal chairman Robert Habeck, Greens Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock and FDP leader Christian Lindner.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Before the start of the coalition talks on the formation of a government made up of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, a dispute is looming over the division of responsibilities. At the weekend, the Greens and the FDP raised the right to fill the post of finance minister.
The deputy FDP chairman Wolfgang Kubicki campaigned for party leader Christian Lindner, the Baden-Württemberg finance minister Danyal Bayaz (Greens) for the Greens chairman Robert Habeck. He could “imagine no one better than Robert Habeck for the job of the Federal Minister of Finance,” wrote Bayaz on Twitter. He was “thoroughly prepared for this responsible task”.
Habeck also gained experience as head of a ministry in Schleswig-Holstein. “If the aim is to reliably implement the agreements of a coalition agreement, to direct the focus on investments and to stay on course in the sometimes stormy political everyday life, it would be exactly the right one – not just because it comes from the coast,” emphasized the Greens -Politician.
Kubicki, on the other hand, sees Lindner as the ideal candidate for the office of finance minister. “Anyone who has doubts that everything will succeed – the financing of the project without a tax increase and without new debts – must want Christian Lindner to become finance minister in order to document that it works. Otherwise the FDP would have the cake on its face, “said Kubicki on Saturday the radio station NDR-Info. However, so far neither the division of departments nor the division of departments has been discussed. Who will occupy them should only be decided at the end of the negotiations, said Kubicki.
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The FDP negotiator Marco Buschmann, who helped formulate the exploratory paper of the Ampel partners, also brought Lindner into play for the central cabinet position of the finance minister. “I can’t think of anyone better for this job,” said the first parliamentary manager of the FDP parliamentary group to “Spiegel”.
“In the last few weeks and months I have seen how thoroughly Christian Lindner prepared himself for this task.” That was also noticeable during the negotiations.
Disagreements in financial policy
Lindner has faced the hearing in the exploratory talks against tax relief for low wage earners. “That’s just the price we pay because the FDP has prevailed at the point,” said Habeck on Friday in Berlin. Such relief could only be achieved if taxes were raised for top earners – and that would have been rejected by the Liberals.
The FDP had also enforced that the debt brake will not be relaxed. “We will guarantee the necessary future investments within the framework of the constitutional debt brake,” says the exploratory paper by the SPD, FDP and the Greens. And: “We will not introduce any new taxes on assets.” The income, company or value added tax should not be increased.
Especially with regard to the financing of the planned future investments, the future financial policy is likely to become a central sticking point in the upcoming coalition negotiations. From the SPD-Linke came the proposal to agree on the establishment of a public investment company that could carry out the investments “in accordance with the debt brake”.
The leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP presented a joint paper on Friday on the outcome of their exploratory talks and called for coalition negotiations. The SPD executive committee voted unanimously for negotiations on Friday. With the Greens, a small party congress with 99 delegates is to decide on the start of coalition negotiations this Sunday. The FDP leadership wants to deal with it on Monday.
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