This week, so much is already certain, the future of the German economy will be decided to a certain extent: the two parties that will rule the country with a certain probability in the next four years will be knocking on their election programs.
In times when the wish lists are subsequently poured into ever thicker coalition agreements, they are already setting the path of future governance quite strongly.
Ralph Bollmann
Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of economics and “Money & More” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.
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Since the FDP almost perished because it did not enforce its request for tax cuts in 2009, it has been clear to all parties that central election promises must also be implemented.
The trick is to build up controversial positions for the election campaign - and not to obstruct compromises for the time afterwards.
Never in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany have two candidates for chancellor been in a neck-and-neck race who, like Armin Laschet and Annalena Baerbock, are openly heading towards a possible alliance.
3000 amendments already tabled
It starts with the Greens, who will meet on Friday for the party congress. Actually, the party leadership around Baerbock and co-leader Robert Habeck had done careful work and made sure that there was nothing on the 130 pages of the draft program that was submitted months ago that could frighten voters too much or fundamentally disturb future governance. But the grassroots won't take part, 3,000 amendments have already been tabled, and the leadership will not be able to turn all of them. The wishes include a further increase in the CO2 price, which would make gasoline more expensive than the currently controversial 16 cents, or a nationwide rent freeze.
At the CDU it works the other way round, it first lets the grassroots speak and then the leadership decides what should be in the program.
That is why "idea providers" are now allowed to present their wishes on a topic every few days at a virtual "round table".
This week was about building and living.
A tax advisor from the Munich suburbs went to great lengths to waive the real estate transfer tax once in a lifetime so that young families can buy a house more easily.
An architect from the Rhineland praised the wooden construction as a way out of the housing shortage and global warming.
The Berlin CDU state chief Kai Wegner, as host, had every effort to at least briefly bring the language to the topics that are likely to move the majority of people more: the housing shortage in the metropolitan areas or the vacancy in rural regions.
"We stand for sustainability across the board"
The CDU leadership knows very well that the choice will not be based on timber construction and property transfer tax.
That is why it will meet next weekend, parallel to the Green Party Congress, to discuss the election program prepared by the two secretaries-general;
a week later she wants to decide it together with the CSU.
Since two parties have to agree on a common program, open votes as with the Greens would not be possible.
The two areas that are at stake here are already emerging: climate policy and financial policy. “We stand for sustainability across the board,” says Andreas Jung, vice-president of the parliamentary group, who is also familiar with environmental policy. “This of course includes consistent climate protection, but also the inseparable thinking of the environment, economy and social issues. That is why we rely on innovations and technologies. ”He also includes finances, and the debt brake is“ sustainability in constitutional law ”for his party.