Habeck near Miosga
“The mood in Germany is minor”
By Marko Schlichting
February 5, 2024, 6:40 a.m
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Caren Miosga has the next political celebrity as a guest: Economics Minister Robert Habeck from the Greens. The politician is primarily trying to row back.
The traffic light coalition has a huge problem: it is unpopular. “The mood in Germany is minor,” says Robert Habeck. The Minister of Economic Affairs and Vice Chancellor is a guest on the ARD talk show “Caren Miosga”. “Maybe I can bring a little major into it,” he hopes. He is likely to fail in this project, even though he is trying really hard.
You have to give him one thing: Habeck knows that he made mistakes. And he openly admits this when the show’s host asks him: “Are there any wrongdoings for which you blame yourself?” “Yes,” he says, and he has said that often enough. “The heating law certainly made a contribution. And that is ultimately my responsibility for not recognizing in time that something was also happening in Germany at the turn of the year 22-23.” He bears responsibility not only for his area, but also for the government to which he belongs.
Habeck and his special assets
Last Thursday, the minister caused confusion with a speech in the Bundestag. He called for a special fund worth billions to relieve the burden on companies. Habeck suggested the possibility of creating tax credits and tax depreciation options. The Union minister offered talks on this matter. However, their parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz had already announced at the same place on Wednesday that he no longer wanted to work with the federal government.
The economic situation in Germany is too tight and Germany needs to invest more, says Habeck. It is clear “that we have to do more and that we have to create stronger incentives alongside everything else, including financial incentives.” Habeck’s goal: reduce taxes for companies so that more investments can be made again. But that is exactly what the Growth Opportunities Act, which the Bundestag and Bundesrat are currently discussing, is intended to achieve. It has a total volume of eight billion euros. Habeck fears that this volume will ultimately fall to three billion euros or less. Hence the special fund.
“The idea at first wasn’t to provoke the argument,” adds Habeck. But that was possible according to Habeck’s suggestion. Finance Minister Christian Lindner told “Welt am Sonntag” that the idea was surprising in every respect and had not been discussed with him. He is not prepared to take on hundreds of billions of euros in debt in order to pay subsidies on credit.
30 billion euros shadow budget?
In her broadcast, Miosga asks the Minister of Economic Affairs about the expected size of the shadow budget. He doesn’t want to comment on this, but suggests that it could be around 30 billion euros. “If we don’t manage to scrape together the money for eight billion, and we’ll probably get three out of it – that’s what you hear – but we’d need 30, or times ten, then we’ll have a problem ten times as big . And we can’t ignore that. (…) Then I used the word special fund.” But actually he just wanted to make the Union an offer to talk.
“At the moment I see that the elected politicians are primarily emphasizing what is not possible, and why you can’t do certain things, and why you don’t treat yourself to anything, and why you don’t have to have the conversation at all,” adds Habeck. It cannot be the case that democratic parties no longer talk to each other. “I don’t want to believe that it’s not possible to talk to each other about the same problem diagnosis.”
So far, the Union is doing what Merz announced on Wednesday: it is remaining silent. But at least the finance minister is showing willingness to talk, according to “Welt am Sonntag”.
Probably no climate money for now
What encourages the minister: the demonstrations against right-wing radicalism in recent weeks, in which people want to protect the Basic Law despite mutual political differences. Habeck analyzes the rise of the AfD as follows: “First of all, something has come to the country, Germany and Europe from outside.” By this he means the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. As a result, energy prices have skyrocketed and inflation has risen. “German prosperity has been reduced.” If prosperity dwindles and is then distributed differently, “that cannot contribute to happiness in the country.” In addition, right-wing tendencies are also noticeable in other countries, says Habeck. He takes the problem very seriously.
Some people in the population take another problem very seriously: the discussion about climate money. It doesn’t look like it will happen in this legislative period, but he doesn’t know, says Habeck at the end of the program. First of all, the introduction depends on what is technically possible. According to a report he read, there was a problem with the payout mechanism.
In addition, the traffic light parties stipulated in their coalition agreement that the climate money would only come if the CO2 price was above the value that the grand coalition had already decided on. And that is not the case. “I think it’s right to introduce this climate money in the future,” says Habeck. And adds: “In the next legislative period. And if it works in this one, it’s good too.”