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It's election year.

The statement of accounts of the chairman of the FDP at the federal party congress was therefore of course a campaign speech.

The focus was on domestic politics: it was about civil rights in the corona pandemic, about the economy, education and the climate.

In the short term, however, party leader Christian Lindner put in a foreign policy interlude.

Right at the beginning, he classified the situation in Israel in view of the “partly ambiguous political reactions from Germany” from a free-democratic point of view.

"We see terrifying pictures," said Lindner.

1,600 rockets were said to have been fired at Israel with the aim of killing innocent civilians.

These are "acts of terror" perpetrated by the terrorist organization Hamas.

Germany's place is "on the side of the people of Israel", whose security is a matter of state.

In Germany, too, there is agitation and violence against Jews, which is why he asked Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews, as a sign of solidarity, to address the party congress - which he did.

Union and Greens?

"In the end they will still merge"

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This state-political opening was followed by a description of the domestic political situation, which Lindner used to distance himself from all party-political competition (but he did not mention the AfD with a single word) and to woo its voters.

He drew the image of an FDP that stands alone against all others.

In Olaf Scholz, the SPD nominated “a respectable personality with experience” as a candidate for chancellor.

However, the Social Democrats did not come up with his program, but with concepts from party leader Saskia Esken and vice-chairman Kevin Kühnert;

and they would have nothing to offer the workforce “except higher taxes”.

That is why the FDP also makes the workforce in industrial companies the offer to represent their interests.

Initially, Lindner also praised the Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet (CDU).

With Prime Minister Laschet, the FDP governs in North Rhine-Westphalia “trustingly”, he is a “great integrator”.

However, the CDU chairman is already integrating the Greens' election manifesto.

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His defense of the debt brake turned into the offer to create a “new debt pot outside the Basic Law”.

Friedrich Merz (CDU) did not rule out tax increases either, said Lindner, which shows that the Union should not be left alone with the Greens - “in the end they will still merge”.

Lindner formulated a whole series of questions to the Green Chancellor candidate.

The rampant malice against Annalena Baerbock was alien to him, but he wanted to know where she wanted to replace “freedom with prohibitions”.

What understanding the Greens would have of private property.

How Baerbock wanted to bring the country together if “relevant parts of your party wanted to delete the word Germany from the title of the election manifesto”.

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The most important question, however, is whether Baerbock would also be elected to the Chancellery by the Left Party, according to Lindner.

After all, they had made an “avowed Trotskyist” their chairman, he said, referring to party leader Janine Wissler, who wanted a soviet republic and found squatting legitimate: “How does Annalena Baerbock feel about this Left Party?

Anyone who seriously lays claim to the Chancellery must replace tactical cloudiness with clarity. "

He did not raise this claim for the FDP, even if he had to pay the price of not being invited to TV rounds during the election campaign. He is convinced that there are no longer any voting decisions based solely on personalities as in the past, "the constellation defines the character of a chancellorship". His party should therefore become so strong “that both black-green and green-red-red majorities are excluded”.

Basically, there are “two political concepts” to choose from in September: on the one hand, “more state, more redistribution and more bureaucracy” among the SPD, Union and Greens. The other way, on which the FDP relies, is about “trusting people and giving them freedom again”. It is about a directional decision for the coming decade, and the direction of the FDP is that of "freedom, reason and progress". Again he drew this picture: the FDP in competition alone against everyone.

The first priority for his party is the recovery of the economy.

In addition to investments, reducing bureaucracy and digitization, the central means for this are tax relief, because: “It is the market economy that picks up the stakes on which the social network is hung.

It is the market economy that provides the funds that we can then invest in digitization and climate protection, ”said Lindner.

"Without an economic foundation, all social and ecological promises remain unrealizable dreams."

The FDP boss criticized the call for tax increases, which sometimes comes across as a political end in itself.

"That won't happen with us Free Democrats," promised Lindner.

He knows what this definition means for possible coalition negotiations, but it applies: "You can rely on our word."

"Rely on the forces of the market"

Relief should not be an end in itself either.

But with a normal income, it must be possible in Germany to develop economic independence step by step and to live in a home at the end of working life.

“A high-tax country is not attractive for the bright minds and hardworking hands in the world that we as an aging society must invite to us in order to fill the positions that will become vacant in the near future because of a strong generation of Baby boomers are entering retirement age, ”said Lindner.

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In anticipation of the electoral program to be discussed in detail until Sunday, Lindner called for reforms to the education system and social security systems.

And he emphasized the role of his party in the corona pandemic, which had acted as a "civil rights advocate".

The FDP had "always looked for milder alternatives to blanket lockdowns" without playing down the virus.

Finally, he devoted himself to climate policy.

Lindner criticized the “hectic activity in the CDU, CSU and SPD”, which, after the Federal Constitutional Court's climate share, tried to outdo each other in chasing after the Greens.

This "rush-hour procedure" is not good.

Instead, what is needed is a “general inventory of German climate policy” that has “got stuck in a planned economy and is technologically bogged down” and follows the wrong path of “zero growth after 2030” in order to achieve climate neutrality.

But that also restricts the freedom of future generations.

Here, too, Lindner's alternative is: “Rely on the forces of the market, on the innovative strength of engineers.” Just as Biontech developed a vaccine against Corona, “Cleantec” is now needed, which means “enthusiasm for new technologies”: “Climate protection can not be a field of application for anti-capitalist ideologies, ”warned Lindner.

In conclusion, the party leader pointed out what he saw as another unique selling point of the FDP: The recent good surveys were "a great opportunity, but also a great responsibility".

The dimensions of the challenges for the next federal government are great, which is why it is important to combine political self-confidence with “humility and modesty in the face of the tasks”.

This is the only way to gain trust.

These are tones that Lindner has rarely heard before.

The 662 delegates at least got them: he was elected party leader for another two years with 534 of 576 of the votes cast.

That is an agreement of 93 percent.