The liberals are now at the height of power

Epiphany meeting of the FDP

The FDP owes a lot to Christian Lindner.

(Photo: dpa)

The FDP is facing the best meeting of the three kings for ten years. In 2012 the Liberals ruled, but already had their backs to the wall. The crash was looming. Today Christian Lindner can point to a political comeback that is second to none. The FDP leader led his party from the extra-parliamentary opposition into the government.

He himself is the first liberal federal finance minister in 50 years. Lindner has thus delivered its masterpiece. He now belongs in the front row with the FDP grandees Walter Scheel and Hans-Dietrich Genscher. Both forged long-term alliances. One with the SPD, the other dared to turn to the CDU.

The most unlikely traffic light coalition

Christian Lindner is the most unlikely traffic light coalition you can imagine. For a long time he positioned the party in the bourgeois camp and drummed for a black and yellow alliance.

With Olaf Scholz, with whom he has had a long-standing trust and shares the image of the comeback kid, he successfully set the traffic lights from the SPD, Greens and FDP on the way. He also has more in common with the Greens Robert Habeck than divides him.

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But a successful start can only be the beginning. Let’s imagine for a moment if the coalition were a securities account. Then the SPD would be the risk-free government bond, the Greens would be a Green Climate Fund and the FDP would initially be the gold component.

Gold is a defensive asset that you want to use to protect yourself against risks. The classic FDP voter wants compliance with the debt brake, no higher taxes and no experiments with the EU debt rules. Lindner redeemed this at the coalition negotiations. A wealth tax is just as unlikely as a higher top tax rate. Pragmatism prevails when it comes to the debt brake.

The FDP was not only chosen as the gold standard

But the FDP was not only chosen as the gold standard. It also takes some growth stocks. The high proportion of young voters in particular shows that there is a great need for this. It’s about digitization, education and infrastructure.

With the ministries for digital affairs and transport as well as for education and research, the FDP occupies two important future ministries. The two ministers Volker Wissing and Bettina Stark-Watzinger will have to deliver. But Lindner also claims more than just being the master of income and expenditure.

He likes to talk about the Federal Ministry of Finance as the Ministry of Enablement. That doesn’t suit his counterpart in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. After Robert Habeck had to hand over the Federal Ministry of Finance to the FDP, he certainly wants to retain sovereignty over economic policy.

The pandemic is still covering a lot, but the next political challenges are already ahead in 2022. Above all, the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia are the first touchstone for the traffic lights and especially for the FDP. The North Rhine-Westphalian Lindner has to hold up the black and yellow flag in Düsseldorf and defend the traffic lights in Berlin.

It would be fatal for the FDP if it were enough for a red-green state government in North Rhine-Westphalia and in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein. Then one would immediately have the discussion in Berlin whether the traffic light in Berlin was really the right decision for the FDP. Should the FDP, in whatever constellation, continue to govern, Lindner has done everything right, as in the coalition negotiations.

More: With a lot of self-confidence to the Epiphany.

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