Lindner: “The Chancellor has the confidence of the FDP”


NAfter two years of pandemic, finally a real federal party conference with personal encounters. The dark hall of the “Station Berlin”, a former station site in Kreuzberg, is full, a speaker urges that private conversations because of the “intoxication” please have outside – a fitting slip of the tongue. But just one is missing: the party leader. Christian Lindner has Corona.

He is in quarantine in Washington, where he traveled to attend the IMF spring meeting and the G-20 finance ministers meeting. Party Vice Wolfgang Kubicki says in his welcome speech: If Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) had not withdrawn the decision that infected people no longer have to be in quarantine, “then Christian Lindner would be with us today”.

Instead, CL, as the liberals call their boss, will be connected digitally. It’s six o’clock in the morning when he speaks. His voice sounds a bit busy, otherwise you don’t notice his illness. “The pandemic is not over,” he says. “Witness: Christian Lindner.” But she has changed. The aim cannot be for Germany to continue with the strictest measures that interfere most with freedom. A “significant step towards normality” is possible. The FDP has maintained its course here against all criticism, the falling infection numbers agree with it.

Criticism of “certain CDU narratives”

Because the transmission from Washington only works with a six-second delay, the delegates are still clapping when Linder has already arrived at the central topic of these days and the party congress: the war in Ukraine.

“Certain CDU narratives and blanket criticism of the Chancellor cannot be our thing,” Lindner defended Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) against criticism from the opposition. “Olaf Scholz is a responsible leader who weighs things up carefully and makes decisions on this basis,” says Lindner, and: “The Federal Chancellor has the trust of the FDP and also their parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.”

In the debate about arms deliveries, the Union is obviously trying to destabilize the governing coalition. He has “no understanding whatsoever” for this form of “partisan political maneuvering” in times of war. Lindner does not respond to the fact that the loudest criticism of Scholz was recently heard from the ranks of the government.

Lindner criticizes that only the number of MPs from the Union faction who are needed when the traffic light votes closed for the 100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr wants to vote for it: “What is that more than just party-political tactics?”

“No tax increases”

Lindner described the special fund that he proposed and that the SPD and Greens agreed to as an important step in the direction of rearmament, NATO accession and the NATO double-track decision-making process in the past. According to Linder, his appeal to the Union was to stop “party political gymnastics” on fundamental issues and to take on “political responsibility”.

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The FDP leader is in favor of the delivery of heavy weapons – the delegates should discuss and vote on a corresponding proposal from the party executive in the afternoon. The Ukrainian armed forces resisted Russian aggression and thereby also fought for Western values. “And that’s why Ukraine must win this war, and Ukraine will win this war.”

But Linder also says arms shipments should not endanger “our own security” or the “defensibility of NATO’s territory.” “This limits our options.” Likewise, Germany should not suffer more from an energy embargo than Russia. Here he stays in line with the Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Greens).

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The Federal Minister of Finance further rules out tax increases. Stronger economic growth is important. Therefore, one thing must not be done: “raise taxes”. The waiver of tax increases was already important in the coalition agreement, “now this waiver is urgent”.

After a good half hour, the connection keeps dropping, only scraps of words like “our job to show confidence” can be heard. Then the line is back up and Lindner comes to the end of his speech after only 40 minutes – probably much faster than planned. If, after the war and the pandemic, the commitment to peace, freedom and human rights remained worldwide, then that was “a goal worth acting for: every day from today onwards”.



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