Traffic light begins to make a big leap: prober in the intoxication of the moment

Nocturnal marathon negotiations, orchestrated presentation of the results and a lot of pathos: the top representatives of the SPD, Greens and FDP enthusiastically recommend their parties to enter into coalition negotiations. But there the coalitionists expect plenty of conflict.

It actually does exist, the brief moment in which Olaf Scholz, for once, does not have a grip on himself. When the party leaders of the SPD, FDP and Greens line up around him in front of the waiting microphones to announce the success of their exploratory talks, the likely next Chancellor grins. It’s a winner grin; very unequivocal expression of triumph and anticipation. Shortly afterwards, the unmoved expression of seriousness returns: Scholz as well as his party leaders Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans, the Green top from Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck and FDP leader Christian Lindner are aware of the size of this moment.

They all got through this last important appearance after long, nocturnal and presumably nerve-wracking negotiations with the necessary professionalism: They present the German and international press crowd with well-coordinated sentences about the great departure that is now imminent for Germany. Or a little smaller: They announce the recommendation to their parties that they have already been expected to enter into coalition negotiations.

“We actually succeeded: we agreed on a piece of paper, a text to explore,” says Scholz, speaking of a very good result. The headings for this coalition, which all six negotiators call on, are “Progress”, “Modernization”, “New departure”. All the divisions that the parties have overemphasized in the last few months of the election campaign are giving way to the forward-looking view of what could be possible together. Lindner, who by his own admission still lacked the imagination for the traffic light in September, now sees the “chance that a possible coalition could become larger than the sum of its individual parts”. 19 days after the federal election, the future coalitionists overemphasize what they have in common, even if this is partly more in the style and personal sympathy for one another than in the substance.

Lindner puts a yellow stamp on the paper

A look at the 13-page exploratory paper, which sets out the first agreements on the basis of a traffic light government, shows what separates them: namely, what will not come of the various election promises. The SPD and the Greens will not introduce a wealth tax, not raise the top tax rate, not abolish private health insurance, not introduce a speed limit and also not reform the debt brake so that future investments are factored out. The Greens do not get the targeted CO2 pricing including energy money and the SPD not the rent moratorium. “It is absolutely clear that there are unreasonable demands,” says Habeck, making no secret of the fact that, from his point of view, these are mainly due to the liberals.

The FDP prevented many left-wing items on the agenda, as it had promised its voters, and with the maintenance of the debt brake, the promise of the major digitization offensive and the reduction of bureaucracy, it got something that was important to it. But the FDP also had to accept a lot with a heavy heart: The exploratory paper is committed to the obligation to have solar roofs on commercial buildings, to two percent of the land area that will be made available to wind power, at the end of the combustion engine in 2035, to an increase in the minimum wage to twelve euros, for massive public funding of housing construction, a pension guarantee and the introduction of a citizen’s benefit to replace the Hartz IV system.

The dice were cast at night

The FDP programmatically has to go the furthest way to form a traffic light government, which is why the two closely related parties, the SPD and the Greens, which are each larger in the Bundestag, are clearly demonstrating a sure instinct: Not climate, but digitization and the reduction of bureaucracy are the first points on the exploratory paper. Olaf Scholz also mentions the aspect of “modernization” first in his short speech and not about his election campaign, which is the heart of the social issue.

In terms of personal interaction, the red-green exploratory teams have apparently campaigned for the FDP to the best of their ability: “This style alone marks a turning point in Germany’s political culture,” enthuses Lindner about the exploratory talks, which were characterized by trust and confidentiality. And in fact, almost nothing leaked out.

It was not even known that the party leaders had sat together “until the morning hours” of that Friday to tie down the exploratory paper written down by the general secretaries and managing directors by noon. “If you talk for a long time at night, you get to know each other quite well,” says Habeck meaningfully. Actually, the exploratory teams had explicitly not wanted to have long night meetings, but in the intoxication of the moment that didn’t seem to bother either. The will was obviously great to have something to announce on Friday.

The conflict lies in the finances

The two women and four men behind the microphones just grin about what was wrong and how the night session went. Obviously, however, the question of the financing of the many projects is the greatest contradiction in the submitted paper. The fact that Lindner can now emphasize “that there are clear financial guard rails” does not clarify the question of how the public investments promised are to be financed instead. The fact that Scholz ironed out inquiries about this that it would fit, and Esken claims that “the specific financial requirements were not part of our exploratory talks” suggests that there is still a lot of potential for conflict in the coalition negotiations. The fact that the assignment of posts has not yet been discussed, as Olaf Scholz claims, leaves another conflict issue unresolved.

But for this to happen, proper coalition negotiations must first take place. While the approval of the SPD party executive to start negotiations on this Friday afternoon is probably only a matter of form, the Greens must receive the go-ahead from their party council on Sunday and the FDP a yes from their presidium on Monday. The Greens certainly have some success to show for: “Praise and honor for my chairmen,” said Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann as he walked. “You negotiated well.”

Greens find two “embers”

Although Kretschmann does not belong to the activist party left, of whom so many have made it into the new parliamentary group of the Greens, the SPD has agreed that the next federal government will at least try, as early as 2030, eight years earlier than in Coal compromise agreed to phase out coal-fired power generation. Scholz had fought against this so far. Even if there are still no figures on the expansion of renewables, the expansion of the solar roofs and the wind power offensive as well as a commitment to the ambitious EU climate protection program “Fit for 55” is not just little. In any case, Habeck finds “sufficient measures (…) to meet the Paris target” in the paper.

In addition, there is considerable overlap between all three parties when it comes to civil rights, and the Greens can get a lot of heartfelt issues through here, especially with regard to equality between men and women, the rights of transsexuals and the question of citizenship. When it comes to immigration, too, all three parties are closer to each other than any one of them is to the Union. The fact that the term “race” is deleted from the Basic Law and the voting age is to be lowered to 16 years also falls into this category. Habeck speaks of a “second hot core of this emerging alliance and that is social modernization”, a policy “that finally takes into account the realities of life in this country”.

In return, however, the coalitionists in spe are facing completely different calculations that need to be solved first. In addition to questions of financing and indebtedness, as well as the division of responsibilities, there are also topics that are not even addressed in the exploratory paper, such as internal security and defense. The statements on the economy are still comparatively thin, but the announcements are full-bodied: “It will be the largest industrial modernization project that Germany has probably carried out for over a hundred years,” says Scholz. It has become clear that the top representatives of the three parties are not lacking in motivation. You can grin.

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