The gap among those in power could hardly be greater than between the Green Federal Economics Minister and the CDU head of government in Saxony. Nevertheless, Habeck and Kretschmer dare to come closer. This is hardly possible in terms of content, but apparently political disputes first need a new foundation.
For a full half hour, Robert Habeck and Michael Kretschmer manage to cover up their differences and emphasize what they have in common. And so much in advance: The Federal Minister of Economics from the Greens and the Prime Minister of the state of Saxony, which is conservative even by East German standards and is conservative even by CDU standards, actually have a lot in common. And yet there are two very different politicians sitting on the podium in the Ludwig Erhard Hall of the Federal Ministry of Economics on the occasion of the in-house debate format “Conversations on Transformation”. For an hour and a half, the two of them search for common denominators and are clearly trying not to offend the others.
But this foundation does not support an entire evening event: When Kretschmer, who is fighting for re-election, calls for more bureaucracy reductions from the federal and EU governments for the third time and calls for “freedom” for companies and the self-employed, host Habeck’s facial expressions slip. The Green counters: He is pleased with Kretschmer’s commitment to reducing bureaucracy, “because a lot of things are a matter for the states,” says Habeck. “But building regulations? Approval of wind turbines? Greetings to Wonderland.” Giggles in the hall, the expert audience understands the allusion to the fact that in no other federal state are there as few wind turbines as in Kretschmer’s Free State.
Kretschmer wants to unleash the economy
The 48-year-old Saxon and the 54-year-old from near Flensburg are “a bit apart” in their analysis of the causes of the ongoing German economic weakness, as Kretschmer puts it politely. In November he was still upset about the “children’s book author” Habeck and his “disastrous” economic policies. Basically, Kretschmer sticks to his analysis in the Ludwig Erhard Hall: a “bureaucratic juggernaut” is suffocating every economic initiative, and energy prices are too high because of the “unpredictable” traffic light policy.
In addition, despite a record number of jobs subject to social security contributions, too little work is being done in Germany. Kretschmer wants to reduce employee reasons for part-time work. “We are giving a different signal: everyone here has to work 40 hours,” suggests the Christian Democrat. Previous generations “didn’t break a single tooth out of their crown”. High earners and public servants in particular work part-time, says Kretschmer. This is unfair and does not fit with the shortage of skilled workers in Germany.
At least when it comes to bureaucracy, the two fundamentally come together: “All in all, we’ve lost our way,” says Habeck, even if each regulation, approval requirement and so on may be justified on its own. However, the Vice Chancellor warns Kretschmer against playing the black game on this issue and instead preaches pragmatic small-mindedness in order to systematically reduce the mass of requirements. From Habeck’s point of view, the core of the problem is different: the federal government’s lack of debt leeway.
Habeck is not giving up on new debt regulations
The Federal Minister of Economics has just returned from his trip to the USA. He is clearly under the impression of the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies Inflation Reduction Acts, with which Washington massively attracts companies from Europe across the Atlantic. This takes the form of simple tax write-offs, while all federal and EU subsidy programs are miserably complicated and difficult to calculate for the companies applying. Because of the debt brake that also applies to municipalities and federal states, comparable depreciation programs based on the US model are not feasible in Germany, says Habeck, because states and municipalities cannot calculate in advance to what extent companies will make use of such a regulation.
Habeck advocates calculating debt at least over longer periods of time than strictly according to the calendar year or raising the debt limit by at least one or two percentage points. “One percent of the gross domestic product is 140 billion euros,” calculates Habeck. Nobody could explain to him that with one percentage point more debt, “Germany’s debt rate explodes.” Nobody cares whether Germany has 63 or 65 percent of its GDP in debt. “But what could we do with it if we allowed ourselves a little more pragmatic flexibility?” he asks in an almost dreamy tone. He announces that he wants to intensify the debate again, despite possible rejections from the FDP, CDU and CSU.
Kretschmer praises demonstrations against AfD
The Federal Ministry of Economics’s in-house event is not a journalistically moderated debate forum. The participants do not disassemble themselves on an open stage. Kretschmer simply ignores the issue of reforming the debt brake. When the two discussed it with each other four weeks earlier at the Central German Crafts Fair in Leipzig, he sounded different: The traffic light wanted to “subsidize everything away with some kind of debt” instead of making the German economy competitive again, he complained.
So why this moderation? Because Kretschmer is a guest in the lion’s den this time, but in Leipzig it was the other way around? Because Kretschmer isn’t fighting for votes in Berlin, but his comments from Dresden are always astonishing here? Because he also needs a good working relationship with the Federal Minister of Economics, who ultimately released billions in subsidies for the establishment of a microchip factory in Dresden? A bit of all of that, but also this: “We may have different opinions on many points. But what we have to set an example for each other, I think, is that we have to deal with things properly.”
Kretschmer is fighting in Saxony against no less than the first AfD state government. The party is at 35 percent in the polls, and Kretschmer’s CDU is at 30 percent. In the Infratest survey from the end of January, the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance is ahead of the SPD, the Greens, the Left and the FDP with 8 percent. If none of the four gets into the state parliament, the AfD could govern alone. Kretschmer says about the racism problem in his state and elsewhere: “We have to counteract this evil against people from outside with all our might.” The demonstrations against the AfD were “very, very important for political hygiene in our country.”
Kretschmer warns against friend-enemy thinking
Kretschmer knows from the daily confrontation with the AfD and its supporters in Saxony how dangerous the party is. “The essence of the Federal Republic of Germany until the emergence of the AfD was that political parties were not and are not enemies, but that people could always come together,” says Kretschmer. The CDU and the Greens are opponents or competitors, but not enemies. “People who declare others enemies don’t want things good for this country.” How Kretschmer spreads this message in Saxony, sometimes showing a clear, sometimes irritating understanding of people’s attitudes in countless public discussions, has already been the subject of countless media considerations – and will be the same again in the state election campaign.
Habeck and Kretschmer agree that the democratic parties must prevent the rise of the AfD; but not in the question of how. Politics must remove the breeding ground for right-wing populists by taking people’s issues seriously and solving them, says Kretschmer. He lists migration, high energy costs and agricultural diesel taxation for farmers as examples.
Habeck strongly disagrees: “The most important thing is that you don’t believe that right-wing populism is the sum of a lot of small problems.” Right-wing populists continued to look for hot topics and hyped them up until the other parties publicly fell apart over how to solve them. Right-wing populism tries to “lead democracy into an insoluble trap and then prove ‘Look, liberal democracy doesn’t work!'”. The democratic parties should not allow themselves to be seduced into such a division.
When Habeck imagines being Kretschmer
Habeck admits that he is “very often” annoyed by statements he sometimes reads from Kretschmer. “And then I ask myself every time: Are you actually right to be angry? How would you actually talk if you were Prime Minister of Saxony?” That’s why he was grateful that Kretschmer came to the discussion at the Federal Ministry of Economics. The invitee has previously thanked him repeatedly for the opportunity to exchange ideas. This is not possible with other representatives of the federal government.
Although the two of them make little progress on the political issues that evening, they assure each other that they are convinced of the need for decent interaction. The fact that this is necessary at all may also speak volumes about the state of the Federal Republic in the spring of 2024. But if something of this should stick in the foreseeably exciting election campaign months in the East, that would probably be a win.