Photo - Each on their own/ Crisis in Germany's government coalition

2024-08-22 11:04:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Photo - Each on their own/ Crisis in Germany's government coalition

Coalition partners - Chancellor Scholz (right) - Minister of Economy, Robert Habeck, then Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner

Sometimes the visits of politicians come at the right moment for them. Such was Chancellor Scholz's visit to Dresden on Tuesday (20.08.), where the first shovel was symbolically laid for the establishment of a chip factory. This factory, backed by billions from the German government, will supply Germany and Europe with semiconductor chips. Scholz calls semiconductors "the oil of the XXI century" and personally came to the opening of the foundation of the factory according to the motto: crisis? What crisis?

These days, the chancellor's mere presence plays a role. Recently, the attribute of "temporary chancellor" was attached to him. And for this, the initiator was not the German opposition, but a partner of the coalition itself. The head of the Green party, Omid Nouripour, in the summer interview for ARD, described the government of the current coalition between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberals as a "temporary government" after the Merkel era.

"Every government is the government before the next government"

A wording that has caused debate. It should be remembered that the chancellor himself does not see himself as an interim chancellor, Scholz himself notes in his dry manner that: "Every government is the government before the next government - and sometimes it's the same." After all, Scholz admitted in a dialogue with citizens in Bremen on Monday that the real governing performance of the coalition was overshadowed by the difficult decision-making processes in the coalition. And he called on his coalition partners to "govern well" and "behave well".

Dissatisfaction within the coalition - Scholz, Habeck, Lindner

It is debatable whether Scholz's public rebuke of Finance Minister Christian Lindner in the recent budget dispute was "good manners". Scholz looked more like someone who wanted to publicly show his finance minister that he himself understood monetary policy better. However, it was this argument – ??Nouripour even called it “perhaps the most useless of all arguments” – that further accelerated the centrifugal forces within the coalition, whose partners had long been estranged from each other. It seems that there is an effort to hold together what can hardly be held together anymore, just to contradict one's sense of the temporality of politics. Of course, who wants to be a transitional government?

German Minister of Transport and Digitalization, Volker Wissing

Wissing: Another stance from Nouripour

As the chancellor in Dresden talked about the future of the economy, FDP Transport Minister Volker Wissing used a visit on Tuesday to talk about the future of German railways precisely at a site for the general renewal of the tracks, a central segment for transport long distance rail. Currently, the German railway has become a symbol of what does not work in Germany. The Minister of Transport spoke of the rail network as an "oldtimer" that the coalition government took over from the previous government. It is pronounced in relation to the voices of the "provisional government". "The FDP does not want to govern temporarily, but in the future," said Wissing, leaving it open whether all this should be with the current coalition. Liberals themselves have not been satisfied with the coalition government for a long time, but they ignore the "temporary" notion.

Co-chairman of the Greens Omid Nouripour

Habeck will become a candidate for chancellor

We move on to the third coalition partner, the Greens. The politician who can become a candidate for chancellor of the Greens, Robert Habeck, currently the Minister of Economy, invited the citizens to a dialogue in the Ministry of Economy on Tuesday. Habeck will listen to the citizens, make the Ministry of Economy close to them. "The office is as tidy as ever." Habeck will improve the image, when his gaze is directed by the chancellor's office.

Even if the chances are not so great at the moment, Habeck still has a message ready: "If I ever become chancellor, Christian Lindner will not be finance minister." How disappointed Habeck is with the coalition, it became clear after the minimal compromise reached with the budget negotiations: "How can I say: that's how it is."

More distance with your coalition, you hardly find. Regardless of whether one talks about a temporary government or not, later this sentence is understood to ring bells: everyone in the German governing coalition is now doing their own thing./ DW