Habeck calls for more community spirit
Hofreiter: SPD “no longer a natural ally”
04/09/2023, 4:15 p.m
The thick air in the traffic light is spreading day by day. The mood between the Social Democrats and the Greens seems to be particularly bad. The latest coalition committee is clearly causing dissatisfaction with Anton Hofreiter. Meanwhile, an SPD deputy confirms the substantive proximity to the FDP.
According to a report, the relationship between the SPD and the Greens in the traffic light coalition is increasingly characterized by discord. The Greens member of the Bundestag Anton Hofreiter told the “Welt am Sonntag” that after the most recent meeting of the coalition committee it was clear: “The Scholz-SPD is no longer the natural ally of the Greens.” Especially in his party there had been criticism of the results and the actions of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
According to the report, criticism of the Greens’ climate course is growing among social democrats. “In the SPD, the interests of employees and industry are more in focus,” said Bundestag member Joe Weingarten of the newspaper. “Our economy operates worldwide, it is the backbone of our prosperity, which cannot be burdened at will.” With this attitude, the SPD has a “substantive proximity to the FDP”.
Weingarten particularly criticized the approach of the Greens when replacing oil and gas heating systems. In his constituency, he was assailed by citizens “for whom the pace of heating replacement is too brisk,” said the SPD member of the Bundestag. “People have to calculate. We have to take that into account,” he said, adding: “The Greens also have to learn to make politics according to their election results.”
Habeck pleads for cohesion
Meanwhile, Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck is admonishing the traffic light coalition to have more public spirit. “It is important that we concentrate on the actual task of acting for Germany – and not for our own Twitter followers,” said the Green politician to the Funke newspapers. He did not want to “deny that we as a government have not given a nice picture in the past few weeks”. But it is necessary to struggle with each other to find the right solution.
“We don’t want to make ourselves comfortable and sit it out like the grand coalition,” said Habeck, referring to the previous government. The coalition committee at the end of March “resolved substantive blockages,” said the Economics Minister. “Since then, three laws from my area alone have been unified that have stuck: the energy efficiency law, the building energy law and the reform of competition law.”
Habeck described the human interaction in the coalition as very good: “Despite many challenges and a lot of work, we also laugh a lot.”
During the three-day deliberations of the coalition leaders at the end of March, decisions were made on the heat transition in the building sector, on the climate protection law and on planning acceleration. The Greens made some concessions, while the FDP saw the results as a success for itself.