Green chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock is pushing for a political awakening, SPD competitor Olaf Scholz lists everything he and the SPD have already got off the ground.

On Monday evening, the two met for the first time since their nomination for the top candidacy in the “Polittalk” by RBB and “Süddeutscher Zeitung”.

In the conversation there were many political points of contact, for example on climate protection and also on social issues, but also differences - on the topic of finances, but above all in the political style between the 40-year-old Green leader and the 62-year-old Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor.

"We propose that we extend the debt brake through an investment rule," said Baerbock with a view to the upcoming restructuring to a climate-friendly economy, which requires additional investments.

Scholz, on the other hand, held that billions of sums had already been budgeted for the government's hydrogen strategy, and that it was more a matter of “spending the money”.

Agree on tax issues

Both agreed on the demand for a fairer design of the tax system with relief for the low-income and families, but also a higher top tax rate and the re-levying of wealth tax for the rich.

“You also have to dare to do something new, otherwise you can't learn new jumps,” said the former trampoline jumper Baerbock for more courage for new things.

“I think things have to be different,” she emphasized.

There shouldn't just be a return to the time before Corona.

She accused the grand coalition of merely "driving on sight" and "only thinking from one day to the next" instead of developing strategies with Corona, as with other issues.

"Don't just wish, but also get it"

“The most important thing to me is that you not only wish for the future, but also have to get it,” countered Scholz. Housing construction needs development plans, planning is also necessary for more systems for renewable energies, he referred to the necessities of political practice and repeatedly to his experience in mastering challenges in different political offices.

On the subject of climate protection, Scholz and Baerbock largely agreed on the objectives, but not always on the details.

The Green leader pushed for a higher CO2 price and, in return, a per capita payment for all citizens, as well as the dismantling of environmentally harmful subsidies.

She recalled that it was also the SPD that had slowed down the expansion of renewable energies for a long time.

But the politics of procrastination must end.

Scholz asked Baerbock, with a view to the required reduction in tax subsidies, to state clearly that “the tax on diesel would then be higher” and that the commuter allowance might not be applicable.

“You have to be specific,” he urged the Green politician.

The expansion of renewables is right and necessary, said Scholz. However, he campaigned for climate protection that “you have to do it carefully”.