Berlin Until Nikolaus there should be a new chancellor, and his name should be Olaf Scholz – that is the stated goal of the three traffic light parties SPD, Greens and FDP. But just six weeks after the general election, the initial euphoria seems to have evaporated, and the Greens in particular are critical of the state of the negotiations.
“We are currently seeing too little progress in terms of the substance of the content,” said Greens federal manager Michael Kellner. Especially when it comes to budget issues, tenancy law or how to deal with the difficult EU partner Poland, there seems to be a crunch between the negotiating partners.
The Green Transport Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Hermann, also spoke in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” about the threat of new elections if the parties fail to agree on climate protection. But the negotiators are actually doomed to success, as the three scenarios in the show Failure: The political scientist Uwe Jun from the University of Trier has analyzed the opportunities and risks for the Handelsblatt.
1. The Union has to do it again
Should the traffic light negotiations fail, the most likely scenario would be that the Union’s phone would ring to talk about Jamaica or a grand coalition again. But there is a problem there: “The CDU is busy with itself and the choice of its party chairman,” says Politics Professor Jun. “At the moment, it cannot even name a clear contact person.” The party is already preparing for the opposition role.
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And yet the Union could be asked to rule again – similar to the SPD in 2017. After the failure of the negotiations on a three-way alliance between the Union, the Greens and the FDP, the Federal President stepped on the scene: “The mandate to form a government is a high, perhaps the highest mandate of the voter to the parties in a democracy,” Frank-Walter had Steinmeier (SPD) warned at the time.
The Union and the SPD were thus sentenced to a further four years of forced marriage in a grand coalition. This time too, a “GroKo” would be mathematically possible. Uwe Jun estimates, however, that the reluctance to such an alliance is even greater than last time. “Not only the two parties, the public is also very critical of this,” says Jun. Another grand coalition legislature would “cause a lot of discontent,” said Jun. SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil had also made it clear that he was a “GroKo “Refuse:” There is no plan B either, “said Klingbeil on ZDF.
And yet, according to Jun, a coalition with Union participation would still be the most likely alternative. “I assume that the CDU would pull itself together again,” said Jun. Otherwise there were only two options that would be highly problematic in terms of party politics and constitutional law.
2. There is a Minority government
Under constitutional law, it is a conceivable option that a possible chancellor does not allow himself to be elected by an absolute majority in the Bundestag. Article 63 of the Basic Law provides that the Bundestag elects the Chancellor with “more than half of its members”. However, if this does not happen after two ballots, the candidate who “receives the most votes” will be elected as Chancellor, according to the Basic Law – a relative majority is sufficient.
A government that does not have a majority of its own would have to seek approval in parliament every time it votes on an ad hoc basis. Such minority governments are quite common in Scandinavia: in Denmark, of the 32 governments since the end of the Second World War, only four have had a parliamentary majority. In Germany, however, there has never been such a “government of the few” at the federal level.
This is also due to the political systems: “In the Scandinavian countries there is a greater consensus attitude than here,” says political scientist Jun. In Germany, on the other hand, the idea of competition is in the foreground, which could make the search for majorities for each individual vote difficult.
It is also questionable whether a minority government could even come about. The greatest uncertainty factor in the election for Federal Chancellor would be the AfD. Neither party would want to run the risk of a chancellor being elected with the votes of the far-right party.
This danger would apply even to the most likely minority government made up of the two parties, the SPD and the Greens. “In the event of a possible red-green minority government, the AfD could not be prevented from daring a coup and co-electing Olaf Scholz as Chancellor,” said Uwe Jun. As SPD Chancellor with AfD support, he would have to reject the election.
Thuringia is a deterrent example of such a scenario. In February 2020, the AfD elected the Erfurt state parliament member Thomas Kemmerich as prime minister – who accepted the election, but then had to resign from its own ranks after violent protests. Political scientist Jun therefore considers a minority coalition in the federal government to be “hardly feasible” in the current constellation.
3. Then only new elections remained
If there is no government, the only way out is to ask the citizens to go to the ballot box again. The question of whether this would result in a completely different result than in September would, however, be completely open. In addition, it is constitutionally questionable how new elections could be brought about at all.
According to the Basic Law, the Federal President can only dissolve parliament in two situations: either after a negative vote of confidence from Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) or if the election of a new Chancellor fails with an absolute majority in the Bundestag.
Another unanswered question is whether a vote of confidence by a Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is only in office in the executive position, would be constitutionally permissible at all. In addition, the price would be high, because elections are expensive: According to estimates by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the federal election in 2021 cost around 100 million euros.
More: Noise instead of a cuddle course: the traffic light negotiations come to a standstill.