All beginnings are difficult – but so difficult? More and more ministers in the new federal government are tripping over their own feet, but the chancellor just lets them walk.
Becoming a government was not difficult, but being a government was very difficult. You could laugh at the mangled rhyme, but the truth is, what the new federal government is delivering is no longer funny. It’s a strangely squashed bumpy start.
Initially, the three parties managed to convey a feeling of departure, of momentum and the will to want something with this new coalition. The traffic light under Olaf Scholz started with a lot of early praise. After seven weeks it is already withering.
All beginnings are difficult – but so difficult? More and more ministers in the new federal government are tripping over their own feet, but the chancellor just lets them walk.
The popular health minister Karl Lauterbach can’t get any rest in his actions. When millions of recovered people lost their favorable vaccination status overnight, the entire population was unsettled. Not to mention the lack of testing and the quarantine mess.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck is letting the loan subsidy for home builders expire overnight, and hardly anyone affected knows what will happen next.
There are also internal cross-shots and unresolved conflicts, and each time the left doesn’t know what the right is doing. This is bad craftsmanship, but the chancellor remains silent. Because of “leadership”.
With the almost endlessly rising prices and the equally endless Corona crisis, two strong currents are undermining the cohesion of the country. You can’t just face this on a daily basis, it needs a strategic approach and the broad perspective of a solution. But the government is bumping through the days, and hardly anything wants to fit into a large, coherent picture. Even the temporarily high level of approval for Scholz’s general obligation to vaccinate is crumbling, and the chancellor just looks on.
And the ugly truth also includes: The new government has not yet been seriously examined. What will Scholz do if there really is a war in Eastern Europe? Like so many others, he leaves this question unanswered. None, the chancellor dares almost nothing.
If things continue like this, Angela Merkel could have stayed in office.