The FDP will meet for the party conference in Berlin on Saturday and Sunday – the situation remains difficult for the Liberals. The twelve-point paper is intended to strengthen morale and annoy the Greens and the SPD. Will that succeed?
How long will the traffic light coalition hold out? Will it be over this summer if the budget negotiations fail? These questions will shape the party conference of the smallest government party this weekend. The FDP itself called these spirits, especially its chairman Christian Lindner. In a flood of interviews, the finance minister initially called for a “dynamization of the economy” and now an “economic turnaround”. The demands culminated in the twelve-point paper that the Federal Executive Board passed last weekend.
This is about reducing bureaucracy, a moratorium on new social benefits, the abolition of the solidarity surcharge for everyone, a stop to funding for renewable energies and an abolition of pensions at 63. The question of what would happen if the SPD and the Greens do not go along with this is given way Lindner looks elegant. He then says that it is unimaginable that nothing would happen. After all, Economics Minister Robert Habeck also recognized an urgent need for action.
And if not? What if the SPD and the Greens do not accommodate the FDP? Will the traffic light coalition then collapse? After all, there was already a similar case. 42 years ago: In 1982, the FDP left the coalition with the SPD and instead formed a government with the CDU, making Helmut Kohl Chancellor. But there is a crucial difference to today. Today the CDU and FDP do not have their own majority. The FDP will not be able to jump from one government coalition to the other again.
Jumping into the unknown for conviction
Lindner himself is not innocent that the example is still brought up again and again. Although he himself points out differences between now and then – he also always expresses his appreciation for the leadership team at the time around Otto Graf Lambsdorff and Hans-Dietrich Genscher. For example, just a week ago in the “Stuttgarter Zeitung”: “The FDP showed in 1982 that it would leave a government for its convictions and jump into the unknown.”
When you spin it like that, 1982 doesn’t sound so far away. Because the FDP could do that today, despite the lack of a coalition alternative. Lindner doesn’t say it so clearly, but his message can be understood as follows: If the FDP’s convictions are not reflected in the government’s actions, it would be ready to pull the plug again. Just like back then.
The FDP has made it abundantly clear what its own beliefs are with its twelve-point paper. This made waves in political Berlin. For the SPD MP Helge Lindh, this sounded like a “declaration of withdrawal from the traffic lights”. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder called the paper the “divorce certificate of the traffic light”.
The situation is not quite that dramatic. But seriously. One look at the polls is enough to see the danger the FDP is in. Instead of a good 11 percent like after the federal election, it is at 5 in the trend barometer from RTL and ntv and was already lower. If elections were held tomorrow, she would have to worry about getting back into parliament. There are rumblings in the party. The member survey on whether to stay in the traffic lights after Christmas, which was just about in favor of the traffic lights, testified to the dissatisfaction at the grassroots level.
Suicide out of fear of death?
Many supporters and members are annoyed that the FDP has teamed up with left-wing parties – this ultimately enables left-wing politics in the traffic lights, they say, despite all of their own accents. But the party can’t get out of the coalition that easily. Party veteran Gerhart Baum called it “suicide out of fear of death.” Lindner himself said after the member survey that this wouldn’t work without a reason. So it’s a matter of sticking around and playing opposition in the government. This is how you want to show your own profile and satisfy the base. This also includes continually getting on the nerves of your own coalition partners.
They are still calm. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for example, said of the twelve-point paper: “Coalitions are coalitions and party conferences are party conferences. And now there is another one.” Green Party leader Robert Habeck also said that demands like those in the paper should be made before party conferences. The motto seems to apply: Let the FDP complain and decide something at the party conference, but then we’ll carry on as before. Then the twelve-point plan would be nothing more than a calming pill for their own base. And quite transparent and therefore limited in effect.
You can believe them that the FDP is serious about easing the burden on the economy, limiting social spending and reducing bureaucracy. After all, this is something like the liberal creed. In this respect, the twelve-point paper is more than party conference folklore. Linder and the FDP are raising the stakes in coalition poker and setting conditions for the traffic lights. In the end, something has to come out of it in their favor. And if not? Then the FDP may actually have to jump into the unknown at some point.