There are several ways to refer a partner.

One can entice, talk about successful times together, offer gifts.

So the CDU chairman Armin Laschet tried it on Sunday evening when he raved about a “future coalition” for which he was ready.

In the evening, members of the Presidium such as Norbert Röttgen fanned out to the television stations to highlight the fields in which the Union, the Greens and the FDP can harvest together - foreign policy and climate policy, for example.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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The SPD, however, strengthened by refreshing self-confidence, embarked on a different, rather rare path. Since Sunday evening she has been trying to make the FDP submissive through threats and insults. This affected both the party and especially its chairman Christian Lindner.  

While Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz tried to refute the bad word of the former SPD politician Gerhard Schröder, according to which there was "cook and waiter" in the alliance with the Social Democrats and at least promised eye level, the co-party chairman Norbert Walter made -Borjans on Monday morning made it clear how the Willy-Brandt-Haus is thinking about the FDP and its program: The FDP should be asked whether it wanted to “hang on to a party of the crash”. The very word “hang” was disparaging, as if the party couldn't think twice about it. “Nobody can be prevented from having talks,” he said, but “the moral right” for a coalition with the Union does not exist.

The constellation is reminiscent of the SPD's choice of words after the Baden-Württemberg election in March. At that time, too, the SPD, which had received eleven percent, tried to use moral pressure to prevent the Greens from forming a coalition with the CDU again. Secretary General Lars Klingbeil said that the Greens should be asked whether they want to continue to govern “with this Union that is devoid of content” or whether they are willing “to take on responsibility with a progressive alliance”. The SPD came away empty-handed at the time.

One day after the general election, the FDP heard Walter-Borjans on Deutschlandfunk that their ideas of a modern economic policy were “voodoo economics”. There are “a number of similarities”, but the question is whether the FDP “with a profit of just 0.7 percent” wants to “continue to pursue a policy that pulls society apart”. For example through “special donations to the highest assets”. The SPD chairman also warned the Greens against “allowing themselves to be co-opted” by a “form of bourgeoisie that I do not see as representing the interests of the citizens”. According to Walter-Borjans, the FDP wants “dramatic tax cuts” and at the same time a balanced budget, that is “voodoo economy that doesn't work”. "Mr. Lindner and the FDP would have to come to terms with this."

With such announcements from the possible coalition partner, the FDP chairman could also have remembered how the deputy party leader Kevin Kühnert had dubbed him a few days before the election, namely as "Luftikus" and "player" who had "no serious financial concept" .

Anyone in the FDP who had hoped for a compensatory vote from the SPD, for example from Saskia Esken, was also disappointed on Monday morning.

Esken not only withdrew the Union's moral permission to negotiate, but also denied the FDP and the Greens the right to speak to one another and to explore the terrain.

It goes without saying that the SPD is inviting exploratory talks.

The presidium and party executive of the Social Democrats would still discuss today what this invitation would look like.

In any case, the SPD is not sitting “at the cat table”, said Esken at the broadcaster ntv.

It remains to be seen whether this form of initiating a traffic light coalition will be successful.

But maybe it is not even wanted in leading parts of the SPD.