Sunday, November 28th, 2021
“Just a little tip”
Scholz to Jusos: deal with Union
Speakers from the SPD’s youth organization are dissatisfied with their future coalition partner, the FDP, at their federal congress. Before his election as Chancellor, Olaf Scholz tries to divert the Jusos’ critical focus – and defends the traffic lights.
A few days before his planned election as Chancellor, the SPD politician Olaf Scholz called on the youth organization of his party to be cautious about criticizing the future coalition partners. “If you are looking for someone with whom you want to be skeptical, it would be very good if it weren’t for the people I want to sit down with on the government bench now,” said Scholz at the Federal Juso Congress in Frankfurt am Main .
He thinks it makes more sense “to deal more with the Union than with those with whom we now want to venture out here,” said Scholz. This is “just a little tip from me” to the Jusos. Previously, dissatisfaction with the coalition agreement and in particular with the future coalition partner FDP had been voiced at the federal congress.
Several speakers accused the FDP of restricting the future government’s financial leeway through rigid fiscal policy ideas – one speaker spoke of a “yellow zero” in this context. It was also criticized that the coalition agreement provided too little fairness of distribution, offered too little protection for tenants from rent increases and wanted to force the deportation of rejected asylum seekers.
One speaker criticized the fact that the coalition agreement provided for the conversion of Hartz IV into a citizen’s benefit, but not significant increases in the standard rates. “Without increasing the rates, we can smear the talk of dignity in our hair,” said one delegate.
“My mood is changing”
Another delegate complained that the “traffic light” wanted to “deport more people than the Union”. He added, “My mood is upset. I just think that sucks.”
Scholz replied that of course not all of his party’s concerns could be enforced in the coalition. The “traffic light”, however, has the chance to fundamentally modernize the country despite all the differences between the parties and, in the longer term, to bring new social majorities behind it.
“It’s about an overall performance that the government must bring about,” said Scholz. He wanted to advertise to the Jusos that “we develop this look”. Juso boss Jessica Rosenthal promised Scholz the “critical and solidary” support of her organization. “We look forward to electing you as Chancellor in the Bundestag,” she said.
Rosenthal had been re-elected as Juso boss the previous evening with 73.2 percent of the vote. The Young Socialists currently make up 49 of the 206 SPD members of the Bundestag and thus have a significantly greater influence on SPD politics than before.