What about the Germany bonus?

Even if many are now expecting the traffic light, the parallels in the socio-economic profile of the voters of these four parties speak in favor of Jamaica. Perhaps that is why Olaf Scholz looked very withdrawn in the Berlin group on Sunday evening. So Laschet is not out of the chancellor’s race yet, even if you can hardly imagine him on the international stage as a heavyweight against Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping.

In any case, it should serve the future viability of our country that the two parties with the greatest support in the young generation – Greens and FDP – are now the Chancellor-makers of the Federal Republic. Above all, however, work on the long overdue “deletion” of the republic should now begin. For the past 16 years, we Germans, supported by a long boom, have collectively talked each other up.

We appreciated Merkel’s sedation of society

Anyone who asked critical questions was quickly greeted with a “We’re still gold” – although the outdated German bridges and roads, for example, were increasingly developing in the direction of the ailing US infrastructure. In general, we became more American in the era of Angela Merkel. For a long time it had been believed that Americans were particularly strong in public relations, but not in actual performance. For Germany – before Merkel – the opposite equation applied.

It would, however, be too short-sighted to put all the blame for undesirable developments on the Chancellor. As the nation’s moderator, she did an excellent job of numbing us. The real problem is that as a society we have not only allowed this sedation. We even wanted it that way! In other words: We are all the German Michel. The objection often heard: “Which nation does it better?” We should rather ask ourselves: “Who does what better than us?” In order to be able to learn from it concretely.

In the election campaign – in addition to the now almost impartial will to accelerate the process – the Merkelizing, diamond-forming chancellor candidate Scholz was downright omnipotent: stable pensions, fair rents, secure work, climate protection. All laudable goals, which, however – as with most other parties – often fail due to simple calculations of three. A quarter of the federal budget already goes to pension insurance as a subsidy. Nevertheless, the working life should not be extended and the pure pay-as-you-go system should be adhered to. Generational justice works differently.

It may be obvious that politicians hardly address such facts for reasons of political opportunity. However, the fact that even the TV interviewers were rarely able to show the citizens financial connections during the election campaign is simply unacceptable. What is journalism worth that lets politicians get away with punches and speech bubbles and only works off speculations about coalition arithmetic?

The energy bill is made without the host

The Germans’ greatest illusion will burst like a soap bubble in the coming years: that we are international trendsetters in climate policy. An energy turnaround is unquestionably necessary, only the German version is based on several castles in the air. Most Germans believe that around half of our primary energy already comes from renewable sources. In truth, the proportion is around 17 percent.

The fact that we are reluctant to look beyond the border in terms of climate policy is also due to the fact that important European neighbors achieve their good emission values ​​not least through nuclear power. We, on the other hand, believe with missionary zeal that we can save the whole world by phasing out nuclear energy and coal.

The fact that our transformation model is heavily based on being able to import a large amount of renewable energies from abroad should also prove to be an illusion. This calculation is made without the landlord – after all, other nations are facing the same industrial transformation task and have an enormous need for renewable energies themselves. To what extent they will then still be able to export a lot seems at least questionable.

Conversely, the statement that we can open up important future markets through climate and environmental innovations in German industry is absolutely correct. Especially since China is well on the way to becoming our main competitor in mechanical engineering, for example. It recently toppled us from the podium of the export world champion in what was once the model industry in Germany.

Will the Germany bonus become a penalty?

Shortly before the election, it became apparent in the international media that the long-term Germany bonus would turn into a Germany penalty. This is also due to the fact that our public administration, with its structures dating back to the 19th century, has become a political risk factor, as we saw in particular in the initial Corona phase.

It is characteristic that we in Germany speak of “state servants”, whereas the Americans traditionally speak of “civil servants”, servants of civil society. The German administration, this is an obvious impression, is now primarily serving itself – and not even the state.

Because of the economic and structural political stalemate in the Merkel era, traditional German qualities such as forward-looking infrastructure planning and result-oriented cooperation between politics and business soon threaten to be mere mementos. In other words, we live on our past reputation. Deficits in the “mobility policy”, which is still obsessed with cars, a second- to third-class digital infrastructure and the uneconomically messed up energy transition are signs of failure.

What does this mean for companies? While they were able to sail in the slipstream of German politics for a long time, it is now also important for them to work on a real turnaround. Otherwise the old saying applies: caught with, hung with.

The author: Stephan-Götz Richter is publisher and editor-in-chief of “The Globalist”, a daily online magazine about global economy, politics and culture.

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