What good are the hard-won decisions of the traffic light leaders? Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his coalition received a lot of criticism from the opposition and associations on the day after their hard-fought agreement. In the Bundestag, the Chancellor defended the results of the three-day negotiations: “Now there’s speed in Germany,” he promised in a government survey. The SPD politician particularly emphasized the modernization of motorway routes and additional billions for the railways. The Union, on the other hand, criticized the softening of climate protection rules in rare agreement with environmental organizations. Of the three partners in the traffic light coalition, one was quite disillusioned: the Greens.
From Sunday to Tuesday, the leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP spent around 30 hours net in the banquet hall on the fifth floor of the Berlin Chancellery. The result is 16 pages, which of course are rated quite differently. While SPD leader Lars Klingbeil says it is a “major modernization package” that will “change the country over the next few decades,” CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt describes the result as “not even a wummschen.”
“Dishonest political slogans”: Chancellor in attack mode
The chancellor had spoken of “very, very, very good results” even before the announcement, switched to attack mode in the Bundestag the day after and brusquely rejected any criticism. He accused the opposition of “dishonest political slogans” and once again made fun of “media banging,” which has never been so wrong as it was with this coalition committee.
The long stalemate had also been blamed on him and his house, which coordinates government policy, in the past few days. The Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, even attacked Scholz head-on from the sidelines during an initial break in the negotiations and said that the traffic lights could govern better. “I think holding 19-hour meetings is a sign of the Chancellor’s weakness in leadership,” said the Greens politician. However: Too much leadership is not right for the smaller partners in a three-way constellation, in which everyone wants to be on an equal footing.
Resolution paper is a bitter pill for the Greens
Three-party coalitions also have in themselves that two are allying against one. After this coalition committee, the differences in the comments are particularly clear. While the SPD and FDP are cheering, the Greens are disillusioned. “What we have decided is not enough. That’s why we will stick to it,” said party leader Ricarda Lang on Deutschlandfunk. “But we’ve made progress with it.”
For the Greens, the decision paper is a bitter pill. The planned amendment to the climate protection law does not meet the company’s own requirements in the fight against global warming, and environmental organizations reacted in disbelief. In the end, the Greens also accepted a long list of motorway expansion projects. Solar systems and wind turbines are to sprout along the streets for this purpose. FDP Transport Minister Volker Wissing, who has not yet presented an adequate work program to close the climate protection gap in his area, will have less pressure in the future – after all, the federal government should take on more responsibility for CO2 savings overall and the responsible ministers a little less.
Two against one in climate protection
The Greens see themselves in opposition to the SPD and FDP when it comes to climate protection. For the SPD with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, they are serious political competitors, while the FDP is struggling with poor state election results. A constellation that should not make the red and yellow traffic light partners want to meet the Greens on their core issue.
The problem culminated in the very clear words of Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck last week: It cannot be “that in a progress coalition only one coalition partner is responsible for progress and the others for preventing progress.” The Greens were hardly able to get their ideas accepted in the coalition committee and in the end chose the bird in the hand instead of the dove on the roof – they didn’t want to risk failure.
Many traffic light disputes still open
Because even after the almost endless coalition committee, not all of the disputes between the three partners have been resolved: the contested financing of basic child security, a heart project of the Greens, was reportedly not even addressed. In any case, it does not appear in the decision paper. The ideas of the Greens and the FDP differ widely: Family Minister Lisa Paus would like 12 billion euros to increase benefits for families. Finance Minister Christian Lindner is slowing down and wants to make sure that everyone gets what they are actually entitled to.
The coalition leaders also deliberately avoided the budget dispute. Because here the ministries’ wishes for billions continue to collide with Lindner’s austerity course – with hardly any visible movement so far. It now seems realistic that the finance minister will only send his draft to the cabinet after the tax estimate in May. Then the scope could be at least a little larger than before.
In any case, according to Lindner, the decisions of the coalition have no direct influence on the hard-fought budget for the coming year. Really not? For example, the cash injection for the railways is to be offset by increasing the truck toll. But that only brings in five to six billion a year – the traffic light puts the need for the railways by 2027 at 45 billion. It is just as questionable whether the climate fund, alongside the budget, is big enough to support heating replacement. The next fight doesn’t seem far away.
