Berlin The traffic light government has cleared another hurdle. On Saturday, the SPD approved the coalition agreement with the Greens and the FDP at an extraordinary party congress. 98.8 percent of the approximately 600 delegates voted for the formation of a traffic light coalition.
“This will be a government that wants to risk more progress for Germany. Off to the 20s, ”said SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, who is to be elected Chancellor in the Bundestag on Wednesday.
Before that, however, the Greens and the FDP have to approve the coalition agreement. The FDP holds its party congress on Sunday, the Greens want to announce the result of their membership decision on Monday afternoon.
In contrast to the formation of the grand coalition in 2018, the approval of the SPD was undisputed this time. And unlike in the past, this party congress was not a difficult course for Olaf Scholz, but a coronation mass. At least as far as this was possible under corona conditions.
Only the party executive and a few delegates were able to follow the Scholz speech at the Berlin party headquarters, the other delegates saw it on their screens at home – and saw an Olaf Scholz campaigning fiercely for the coalition agreement with the Greens and the FDP.
Scholz appeals to “responsibility for the whole country”
“Progress brings all three parties together,” said Scholz. As in 1969 when the social-liberal coalition was formed under the leadership of Willy Brandt, the traffic light should “create a new start.” The consensus of this government was “not to preach renunciation, but to rely on technological progress and dynamic entrepreneurship,” said Scholz.
The likely future Chancellor also reiterated his goal of staying in government for more than four years. The traffic light coalition was “to be re-elected,” said Scholz.
But Scholz also wrote in his party’s record book not to concern himself too much with himself in government responsibility. “We are now responsible for the whole country, it’s not about us.”
The outgoing co-boss Norbert Walter-Borjans told his party that in the new constellation with a social democratic chancellor, the SPD would have to be the initiator and not just the “loudspeaker of the government”.
The SPD chairman Saskia Esken described the formation of the traffic light government with the Greens and the FDP as a historic event: “We write history with the traffic light.”
At the end of the Scholz speech, the applause was so loud, despite the small number of people present, that Scholz ironically pointed out that his party friends should not forget to agree to the coalition agreement.
Criticism of the coalition agreement was then only sporadic in the following debate. A Juso representative complained that the planned citizens’ money is not free of sanctions.
Juso boss Jessica Rosenthal sent “greetings to the FDP” and demanded that when it comes to redistribution, “more must happen in the next few years, so far that is too little”. In principle, however, she also praised the coalition agreement. It is based on a substantive foundation.
The former Juso boss Kevin Kühnert listed a few points of criticism in housing policy, “but that’s just the way it is with coalition agreements”. Kühnert urged his party to “stay hungry. Reality is not always based on what we have written in the coalition agreement “.
Even the Jusos are fully behind the coalition agreement
That the approval would be so unanimous had already become apparent at the Juso Federal Congress last weekend, at which the otherwise government-critical youth organization approved the coalition agreement without major objections.
Because the party congress should decide on the coalition agreement independently of personal details, it is still unclear who will sit at the cabinet table for the SPD in the future. As the only one of the three traffic light parties, the Social Democrats have not yet announced their cabinet members.
Now that the party congress has given the coalition agreement the green light, the SPD intends to present its cabinet warriors on Monday. The decision on the future health minister is awaited with excitement.
Recently, the number of voices that the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach would like in the office, which has become a kind of top pandemic declarer in the corona crisis, has increased.
It is still unclear whether the SPD health politician will actually take over the office of health minister.
(Photo: Reuters)
However, Lauterbach has had a difficult time since his failed candidacy for party leadership in 2019 in the SPD. Lauterbach vehemently railed against the grand coalition and against his own party and smashed a lot of china. Many in the SPD consider him too unpredictable and too disloyal to take on the job that is so important in times of crisis.
The occupation of the Ministry of Defense is also unclear. Other posts, on the other hand, are as good as taken: Scholz’s confidante will be Wolfgang Schmidt, construction minister Svenja Schulze, interior minister Christine Lambrecht.
Hubertus Heil as Federal Labor Minister should also be set, even if some in the SPD recently speculated that he could also take over the Ministry of Defense. The SPD is also allowed to occupy the Ministry for Development Cooperation.
Scholz has the last word at ministerial posts
One person in particular decides which SPD politicians come into the cabinet: the future Chancellor Olaf Scholz. When asked about their future, SPD cabinet members and candidates recently said that “Olaf would then inform them in the next few days”.
After the ministerial posts have been announced, the next decisive personnel decisions will be made in just one week. Next Saturday, the SPD will meet at its regular party convention to elect a new party leadership.
Saskia Esken, party leader since 2019, and the previous SPD general secretary Lars Klingbeil are running for the party chairmanship again. He wants to inherit the previous party leader Walter-Borjans, who had declared that he would no longer run.
Klingbeil’s successor as general secretary will be the former Juso boss and current party vice-president Kevin Kühnert. He was unanimously nominated by the party executive on Friday.
For Kühnert as party vice, Thomas Kutschaty should move up according to the personnel proposal of the party executive. As the top SPD candidate in the state elections next year, Kutschaty is set to recapture North Rhine-Westphalia from the CDU.
More: The big traffic light check – what the coalition is up to