Saturday, October 16, 2021
Who will be the new finance minister?
The FDP and the Greens are already fighting for positions
The traffic light coalition has not yet been finalized, but a ministerial post is extremely popular with the FDP and the Greens. Both parties already have their favorites as to who should succeed Olaf Scholz in an upcoming government.
While the SPD, FDP and the Greens are about to negotiate a possible traffic light government, there is already a struggle for ministerial posts. FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki promoted Christian Lindner as the new finance minister on the NDR. “Anyone who has doubts that the project will be financed without new debts and without tax increases must want Christian Lindner to become finance minister,” said Kubicki. However, the allocation of responsibilities was not discussed in the exploratory talks.
The FDP’s claim to the post of Federal Minister of Finance was also supported by the parliamentary manager of the FDP parliamentary group, Marco Buschmann, in “Spiegel”. He couldn’t imagine anyone better than Lindner. He had prepared thoroughly for what was also noticed in the negotiations. Buschmann left open whether he himself would succeed Lindner in the office of parliamentary group chairman.
In the camp of the Greens, however, you have your own favorite. Green politician and Schleswig-Holstein finance minister Monika Heinold sees her party leader as the ideal solution. “If Kubicki opens the personnel debate, I don’t want to keep my opinion back,” she told the NDR. “So that the closing of tax loopholes actually succeeds and so that investments are not only made in roads, but above all in climate protection, Robert Habeck, as finance minister, would definitely be the right person.”
The leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP presented a joint paper on Friday on the outcome of their exploratory talks and called for coalition negotiations. The SPD executive committee voted unanimously for negotiations on Friday. For the Greens, a small party conference is to decide this Sunday, the FDP leadership then on Monday.
In particular, the financing of the joint projects of a possible traffic light government was questionable for a long time. Habeck assured ZDF that this question had come further than the result paper reflected. “The possibility of being able to take on significantly more debt in the next year” is not one of them. He added: “With one exception that the FDP has pushed for a new pension system, and ten billion will be made available in the next year in a loan.”
The SPD, FDP and Greens had also cleared away other critical points with “preliminary determinations”. Among other things, they agreed on a faster phase-out of coal, a massive expansion of renewable energies and a minimum wage of twelve euros. Neither a speed limit on motorways nor tax increases are planned according to the paper.