Saturday 23 October 2021
Still some conflicts to be resolved
For Wissing, failure of the traffic light is “not an option”
Leading politicians from the SPD, Greens and FDP are determined to make the traffic light come true. But before the joint government is in place, a few conflicts still need to be resolved. For Secretary General Wissing, however, there is no “sustainable alternative”.
FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing sees “no viable alternatives” to a government alliance with the SPD and the Greens. A failure of the coalition negotiations is “not an option,” said Wissing of the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. The talks will be conducted “responsibly and constructively”, he assured. In addition, Wissing reiterated the relevance of climate protection in the negotiations after thousands of demonstrators in Berlin called for more progress in this direction on Friday.
The SPD, Greens and FDP started their coalition talks on Thursday. “All three parties know that it will take an enormous effort to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” said Wissing, referring to a key demand made by the demonstrators. “We are ready and want to do our part to achieve real climate protection.” Regarding the annual investment requirement of 50 billion euros that the Greens see, he said: “To what extent we invest, we will negotiate with one another.” All investments must be “solidly financed”.
No “coalition of the lowest common denominator”
In an interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”, Greens boss Robert Habeck affirmed that the possible future coalition members, as agreed in the explorations, would stick to the debt brake, but wanted to use their leeway for state borrowing. “There is a consensus that the necessary investments will be guaranteed. Accordingly, it is the task of all three parties to implement this,” said Habeck. Government spending also boosted the economy. “We’d be idiots if we didn’t realize the future market offered by climate protection in Europe.”
The SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken emphasized that a traffic light alliance would not be the “coalition of the lowest common denominator”. All partners must be visible, including the FDP as a “party of free enterprise” and civil rights, she said at the party congress of the Baden-Württemberg SPD in Freiburg. She received applause for this from the parliamentary manager of the FDP, Marco Buschmann, who stated on Twitter that Esken was “simply right here”. Esken announced: “The SPD will be a lobby for those who otherwise have no lobby.” Her party wants to stand up especially for children. “We’ll show a certain intransigence there, too.”
Solve disputes in working groups
She called on the approximately 500 delegates not to be irritated by the criticism of the exploratory paper by the SPD, Greens and FDP. “Anyone who says that this is a yellow exploratory paper should take a look to see what has been clearly agreed upon.”
Next Wednesday (October 27th) the 22 specialist working groups of the three parties will start their talks and negotiate details on various topics that are to be included in the coalition agreement.
Issues should be resolved within the working groups as far as possible and not left to the management level of the parties. “The working groups have a high level of responsibility,” said the Green negotiator for the working group “Welfare State, Basic Security, Pension”, Sven Lehmann. “That is also the right thing to do because we have to build a reliable foundation in specialist policy for the next four years.”