The traffic light coalition has been in office for a hundred days – and nothing is as it was. In the beginning there were nice selfies. Now the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks via video in the Bundestag. His country is at war with Russia and has not only thwarted the plans of the SPD, Greens and FDP.
The coalition partners, who see themselves as a progressive coalition, had to adapt to the new situation at record speed. Your key issues of climate protection and digitization only lead a shadowy existence.
Now it’s about war and peace in Europe. And the coalition is doing a surprisingly solid and good policy – even if Chancellor Olaf Scholz missed the opportunity to set important accents in Selenski’s speech in the Bundestag. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz rightly criticized the fact that the chancellor did not go to the lectern after Selenski.
It was not a golden hour for Parliament. Nevertheless, the cabinet has to work and it works. This is also due to the fact that the people involved can obviously trust each other.
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Scholz and his two deputies, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner, shape government work. Habeck, who would like to succeed Scholz in the Chancellery, expects a lot from his Greens. Of course they are not satisfied. An additional 100 billion armaments expenditure, a possible extension of the operating times of nuclear power plants and arms exports to crisis areas.
It takes courage for all these decisions, especially for a Green politician. Lindner has also made the step from sharp-tongued opposition leader to enabling minister, as he says himself. As a pragmatic treasurer, he finances the armaments expenditure and does not shy away from tax relief for people, including at the pump. Not to be forgotten: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who not only impressed with her speech to the UN General Assembly.
What is also astonishing is that in view of the foreign policy crisis, there has been no call for “crisis chancellor Angela Merkel”. Incidentally, also the call for the Union, which always understood security policy as its brand core.
The stumbling start of the traffic light coalition is almost forgotten
The population apparently trusts the new faces that they can walk the difficult tightrope between supporting Ukraine and avoiding a new major conflict. This is also due to the fact that Angela Merkel’s foreign policy legacy, especially her Russia policy, is heavily burdened.
Every word is too much about former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But Merkel’s policy of appeasement in recent years, for example in the Crimea crisis, has made it possible for Russian President Vladimir Putin to regain his strength. The Bundeswehr is in a pitiful state and the dependence on Russia for gas is now taking its toll.
>> Read here: Selenski calls on Scholz to take on a leading role
The traffic light coalition has done good government work so far. Everything looked like a stumbling start. The corona policy was no better than that of the grand coalition – and that’s putting it kindly. Otherwise not much had happened. Much has been said about the Minister of Health and his RKI boss. Then there was the argument about compulsory vaccination, which ran right through the parties. Little was heard of the departure.
The Ukrainian President appealed to Olaf Scholz on Thursday to support Ukraine.
(Photo: dpa)
But none of that matters anymore. Now it’s about peace and security. The latter in a broader sense. Society, already exhausted by the pandemic, must now contend with a war on its doorstep.
There is no reasonable alternative to Germany having to rearm. A thought that many citizens, but also politicians from the Greens and the SPD Left Party, have to get used to. Then it’s about inner cohesion. The longer the tough economic sanctions last, the more the German economy will suffer.
With impositions for the population is to be expected
Bundesbank President Nagel does not yet see stagflation, but the demands on the population and the economy are yet to come. Inflation is already there, but it remains to be seen whether there is also a threat of increasing unemployment. Economics Minister Habeck has repeatedly warned of mass unemployment in connection with an energy embargo.
It is not the first time that exogenous crises determine the start of a coalition. One thinks of the Kosovo mission of red-green or the Greek crisis, which black-yellow had to master immediately.
But in this drama, no chancellor had to start work with his cabinet. Citizens and business can only hope that Scholz will continue to act calmly during the crisis and that hotheads who advise direct NATO intervention in the Ukraine conflict will not prevail.
More: The Merkel era is finally over: Olaf Scholz is making the urgently needed about-face