The Federal Economics Minister from the Green Party and Finance Minister Lindner on their arrival for the German-Dutch intergovernmental consultations in Rotterdam.
(Photo: dpa)
The claim was not great: the chancellor himself spoke of a “small leap forward”. But his alliance of SPD, Greens and FDP has fallen short of even this expectation. Even a crisis marathon lasting more than 19 hours did not help to reach an agreement. The continuation of the spectacle follows on Tuesday.
The coalition looks exhausted. Olaf Scholz and his two most important ministers, Robert Habeck from the Greens and FDP leader Christian Lindner, could not even agree on a simulation of movement. This new pace of Germany was best described in the tweet by the Federal Minister of Finance after the meeting: “Inventiveness – #lack of sleep #coalition committee”.
Lindner’s appeal for more inventiveness is a synonym for all the unsolved problems of the traffic light coalition. Household, taxes, wind turbines, road construction, basic security for children or heating. The list of disputes is very long and shows one thing: there are three different parties, each with a completely different view of climate protection.
When the coalition partners talk about progress, nobody wants to go back to the Merkel era. But while the SPD feels like it’s still at the start, the FDP and the Greens have already sprinted off, just in different directions.
This culminated last week in an attack by Wolfgang Kubicki on Robert Habeck. The FDP deputy compared the economics minister to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Even if he apologized afterwards, it was only the culmination of a slashing and stabbing between the Greens and the FDP that had been going on for weeks. What is the chancellor doing? At best, Olaf Scholz moderates, shows a bit of leadership when there is no other way.
But all this seems haphazard to the citizens. It’s not just about the half-baked ideas for banning oil and gas heating. It is also about how the coalition deals with it.
If Scholz, Habeck and Lindner don’t pull themselves together soon, they will increasingly lose acceptance of the climate change. Of course, some decisions will hurt, but they still have to be made — and soon.
Time was pressing again for the coalition meeting. Scholz, Habeck and Lindner therefore flew together by helicopter from the Chancellery to the airport in order to be on time for the Dutch-German government consultations. The mood of everyone involved seemed to be in the best of spirits during the lightning visit. But one could also say that the coalition is at a standstill.
More: Coalition Committee suspended – resume Tuesday