Et are days according to Christian Lindner’s taste. His cabinet colleagues need him, they’re demanding more money, and everyone speaks to him at the Federal Ministry of Finance. It comes and goes – and sometimes you should be able to tell from the ministers’ faces how the conversation went. The tendency can only be: corners of the mouth downwards.
Actually, the FDP chairman should currently be the one who walks around with the corners of his mouth hanging down, after all his party botched the election in Berlin for the fifth time in a row. In nationwide surveys, the FDP is dangerously approaching the 5 percent demolition edge. But that doesn’t seem to bother Lindner much. He enjoys the office: the meetings with his counterparts, as recently in Bangalore, India, the government survey in the Bundestag, the appearances in front of business representatives. On the one hand, he is state-supporting, on the other hand, he likes to quarrel. Also with his cabinet colleagues.
There is a lot of creaking in the coalition, the keywords are well known: basic child security, road construction, the end of combustion engines, the ban on heating with oil and gas in the future. One almost wants to ask whether there is actually still any issue on which the federal government is in agreement. In this tense situation, the FDP politician has to put together what doesn’t want to fit together: the expected income and the possible expenses in the coming year. As if that were not enough, it is also about planning up to the year 2027. There is still a good week left, and the federal cabinet wants to decide on the key figures in mid-March. Normally the draft is sent out on the Friday before. Can the appointment be kept? One thing is certain: the budget negotiations were far from being as difficult as this time.
Özdemir, Heil and Lauterbach have already auditioned
In the mighty building on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Leipziger Strasse, lively activity can now be observed: Cem Özdemir, the Green Minister of Agriculture, has already called in, as has Nancy Faeser (Interior Affairs, SPD), Hubertus Heil (Labour, SPD) and Karl Lauterbach (Health , SPD). Minister of Justice Buschmann is said to be through already. The fact that he is a friend of the finance minister’s party, or even a buddy, shouldn’t have played a major role, rather that his budget was not that big anyway and the problems with it were manageable. A year ago, when the entire cabinet was allowed to stand up for the first time to compare what was desirable with what was feasible, Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) learned that the right party book was not enough to get the hoped-for commitments. From the point of view of the chief treasurer, this is only logical: if the SPD and the Greens would realize that he treats his people preferentially, this would be the end of any disciplining success.
The desires are great: Boris Pistorius (SPD) calls for a surcharge of 10 billion euros for the Bundeswehr. Volker Wissing (FDP) needs just as much for the train. Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) is even demanding 12 billion euros for the new basic child security, albeit only from 2025 onwards. But that doesn’t really help her or Lindner much, because that would have to be taken into account in the financial planning. All in all, the additional requirements reported by cabinet colleagues should add up to 70 billion euros.
A brief exchange of letters between Lindner and Economics Minister Robert Habeck provides an insight into the current tensions in the coalition. The Greens politician recently wrote “on behalf of the Greens-led ministries” that the coalition had agreed on political projects that were by no means subordinate to compliance with the debt brake. He suggested discussing how to improve income, reduce environmentally harmful subsidies and replace support programs with regulatory law. Lindner reacted immediately. On the plane on the way to Helsinki, he tinkered with his answer and formulated it smugly: He was relieved that the ministries led by the Greens did not question the Basic Law. But he was surprised that they no longer accepted the key figures for the 2024 budget, which the cabinet decided in mid-March 2022. It is advisable for the federal government to be predictable if it respects its own decisions.
