The shift in the weight of political power in Germany is hardly better documented than the idea of ​​the FDP and the Greens to first sound out what is common and what separates them before talks with the SPD and the Union begin.

This is all the more remarkable as the FDP and the Greens themselves achieved decent, but by no means outstanding, election results.

But the SPD lacks the alternatives after - and this is excellent news for the country - no majority with the Greens and Left Party is possible.

This strengthens Olaf Scholz against the wandering left of the SPD and should end all dreams there that one could pursue a policy of excessive national debt using tricks with the debt brake.

Instead, the SPD needs an FDP for a traffic light coalition, which cannot afford gambling games with a view to its electorate and has to insist on a market economy policy.

The Greens are not exclusively fixated on the SPD

The SPD-Left does not seem to have fully understood this yet. In any case, it is more than strange behavior to demand from the FDP on the one hand entry into a traffic light coalition, on the other hand to regard the liberals as representatives of a dark and unjust neoliberalism and to abuse them as adepts of a “voodoo economy”. Even those who do not see the incumbent party chairmen of the SPD as political heavyweights can only be amazed at such follies.

Considerations in the SPD that the Greens are a quasi-natural coalition partner could also prove to be premature. At least before the election, according to all that can be heard, the green establishment was by no means exclusively fixated on the SPD, which is considered by not a few Greens to be more structurally conservative and far less adaptable than a union with which the Greens at federal state level in thoroughly successful government coalitions are connected. The perception of the SPD as a “progressive” party is not widespread outside of social democracy.

It cannot be concluded from this that a traffic light coalition with a Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz will not come about. Such an alliance is very possible, perhaps even probable, but it is not inevitable, and to realize it the SPD would have to pour more water into its red wine than its left wing would like.

The FDP and the Greens present themselves as forces for political change. You will want to talk to the Union about a Jamaica coalition, if only to drive up the price of the SPD. For Armin Laschet, these negotiations would be an occasion to insist on party discipline and thus to avoid the day of accounting for the election result. The FDP and the Greens are likely to expect more influence on government policy from a connection with a weakened Union than from an alliance with a victorious SPD. From the point of view of large parts of the economy, a coalition with the Union would rather be associated with a market economy policy than a traffic light.

But Monday already showed that the Union does not want to silently transition to coalition negotiations. Because there is a considerable need for discussion: the election result is simply catastrophic - and if the SPD had not given the Union the gift of a “red sock campaign”, the defeat would probably have been even more dramatic. For reasons of traditional internal party power tectonics, large parts of the CDU leadership embarked on a largely erratic election campaign with a weak candidate for chancellor, only to find out, to their surprise, that the foundations of the former state party were extremely fragile.

Because times have changed.

The crises of the last 15 years, the pandemic, the digital revolution and the climate debate are not only transforming the economy and society, but also politics.

Anyone looking for something positive in the election results will find it among other things in the losses of the Left Party and the AfD and in the good performance of the FDP among young voters, who, contrary to a popular narrative, by no means all lean towards the Greens.

The elections are still decided in the middle and not on the fringes.

However, it is not yet clear whether this will lead to the courage to pursue a more market-based policy.