On Thursday afternoon, the SPD, Greens and FDP begin coalition negotiations for a possible traffic light government.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin It will be full on the grounds of the Berlin trade fair when the almost 300-strong negotiating force begins the coalition talks. After the start in the big top round, 96 men and women from the SPD, Greens and FDP will ponder the formation of a traffic light coalition in 22 working groups from next week. Meanwhile, German entrepreneurs are skeptical about a possible traffic light coalition.
This picture is drawn from an exclusive survey by the opinion research institute Civey for the Handelsblatt. Most of the 750 or so entrepreneurs surveyed do not believe that a federal government made up of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP could advance the German economy – a total of 63 percent.
36 percent even answered the question clearly with “no, definitely not”. Only 29 percent of those surveyed believe that a traffic light alliance could be good for the economy.
With a Jamaica coalition, the result could have been different. In a Civey poll before the federal election, most entrepreneurs wanted a government made up of the Union, the Greens and the FDP. The entrepreneurs would have preferred a German coalition – consisting of the Union, SPD and FDP – and even green-red-red.
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But the other alliances are now as good as off the table. After the successful exploratory talks and after the SPD, Greens and FDP have voted internally to start coalition negotiations, the almost 300 party members are now being discussed in groups on topics such as environmental and nature conservation, digitization and science and research.
The working groups are not led by the top staff at the exploratory talks, but by specialist politicians. For example, the former Juso boss Kevin Kühnert directs the working group on “Building and Living” for the SPD.
The rough direction can already be seen in the exploratory paper
From the exploratory paper that the parties presented last Friday, a rough direction emerges as to how the future government will act: The debt brake remains, there should be no tax increases, the minimum wage should be increased, Hartz IV should become citizen’s money, and there is no longer any talk of the speed limit demanded by the Greens.
But even now there are still “big differences in content,” as FDP leader Christian Lindner emphasized on Tuesday. The Green Vizin Ricarda Lang also spoke of “tough negotiations” that were imminent. “Of course we will still have to clarify a lot with the SPD and FDP on financing, climate protection or social policy.” But the parties are optimistic that they will quickly come to an agreement on the disputed points. Their declared goal: to form a government before Christmas.
If that works, it will not be Angela Merkel but Olaf Scholz who will give the New Year’s address. Incidentally, not all German entrepreneurs who were questioned in the Civey survey are enthusiastic about this: just 24 percent rate his policy as being entrepreneur-friendly. 60 percent see it differently.
A Civey survey at the end of August showed that German entrepreneurs are not completely enthusiastic about Scholz. At that time, less than ten percent of those surveyed found that Scholz embodied concepts such as new beginnings and new beginnings.
The occupation in the Federal Ministry of Finance gives the entrepreneurs hope: Half of them would like to see Christian Lindner there. 50 percent were in favor of the FDP leader in a traffic light coalition being given the second most important department in the government. In order to become finance minister, Lindner would have to prevail against competitor Robert Habeck from the Greens.
Wrestling for the Treasury
Because even if, according to the Greens co-boss, it is actually still too early for personnel debates, party members Lindner and Habeck are already in position. For example, the parliamentary managing director of the FDP, Marco Buschmann, said that he could not imagine anyone better than Christian Lindner for the office of finance minister, and FDP vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki also called Lindner the “ideal finance minister”.
Danyal Bayaz, the green finance minister of Baden-Württemberg, sees Habeck as the ideal candidate for the Federal Ministry of Finance.
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