Chancellor’s Office at the traffic light
“It’s not easy in a threesome”
08/19/2023 5:42 p.m
The federal government invites you to an open day this weekend. In the Chancellery, his boss, Wolfgang Schmidt, welcomes the visitors. With ntv he talks about the anticipation of the 2024 European Football Championship, the difficulties in threesome relationships such as the traffic light and the disputes in the cabinet.
ntv: Mr. Schmidt, you are the host at the Chancellery for the open day today, the chancellor himself won’t be there until tomorrow. What questions do citizens ask you when they start talking?
Wolfgang Schmidt: Today was a special day for me because we had Philipp Lahm on stage in conversation. Of course, it was all about the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany, which we wanted to get a little excited about. That’s why the questions mainly dealt with the German national team, with football, with the European Championship and there were also a few autograph requests for Philipp Lahm.
Do you hope that next year’s tournament will also have a positive impact on the federal government as the host, that you can take a certain momentum with you? The mood in the country is not the best at the moment.
I don’t think that the EM will affect the federal government. But I would wish that it would spread to our country and that we could regain a bit of composure. We had three difficult Corona years with many discussions, plus Russia’s war against Ukraine with all the effects on us too. To have a really happy event with us in 2024 is good. I hope that we will get together again at the fan festivals, in the stadium, in the pubs and beer gardens. That might be good for us too.
As Minister of the Chancellery, you tend to pull the strings in the background and are not so much in the public eye. Is your job particularly difficult at the moment? Not everything is going well in the cabinet at the moment.
It is always important to understand that for the first time in the history of the Federal Republic we have a coalition of three very different parties. In threesomes it is of course not easy – you know that from private life. It’s easy to come to an agreement with two people, but when there are three things get complicated. This is also the case with us. In addition, the times are of course special: not only does the Russian war of aggression bring with it many challenges, but also the fact that we have to tackle a lot of things that may have been left undone in recent years. That’s why it gets a bit more strenuous every now and then, but I think that’s part of politics.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz gives the impression that he is actually above the disputes, that he says: Let them argue, I’m the boss and everything will be fine in the end.
No, his job and also the job of the chancellor’s office is to bring the various positions together and to ensure behind the scenes that we come to an agreement. Sometimes it’s the case that you can’t make it public right away, because then, for example, finding a compromise would no longer be possible. I don’t think anyone in the chancellor’s office or the chancellor himself feels that it’s great when other people argue. It’s better if there’s wrestling and if it’s done behind closed doors. Otherwise no one benefits from it. But I’m quite optimistic that the biggest difficulties are behind us.
Holger Schmidt-Denker spoke to Wolfgang Schmidt