“The biggest crisis in the country's history is raging out there. Do you think that you have done justice to the situation with this debate? ”The Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier (CDU) reacted harshly when some members of his parliamentary group in May last year questioned the special fund for the financial management of the pandemic. Bouffier had let himself be urged by the Greens and also accepted some million dollar programs with which the small coalition partner wanted to serve his clientele. More bike racks and better lighting of the paths were just as much a part of it as the promotion of exemplary organic farmers and the energetic renovation of forest houses.
None of this had anything to do with the virus. Bouffier still literally brushed his party's MPs for criticizing these special programs. They followed him with clenched fists in their pockets. Now the State Court has agreed with the critics. He misses the connection between the special fund's support measures and the pandemic. And that is only one of several serious points in the verdict, which is downright devastating over long stretches. Bouffier is hit particularly hard right now.
He has only just failed as deputy federal chairman of the CDU with his massive commitment to the party leader and chancellor candidate Armin Laschet.
With the authorization of the Hessian finance minister to incur debts amounting to twelve billion euros, the lawyer has now also suffered shipwreck as head of government.
The judges rejected by far the most important decision of the black-green coalition in the past few years.
"Do not save after the crisis"
Bouffier has to hold up against a strategic and a substantive error. His reputation as a leader, which the party can confidently follow even in difficult situations, is waning. This weakens him at the very moment when he is more dependent than ever on his authority. Because it is currently about nothing less than the question of which top candidate the CDU will be voting with in the next state election in September 2023. The argument that Bouffier is still needed to guarantee the cohesion of the black-green alliance is losing weight as the value of this coalition for the CDU falls.
"Do not save after the crisis" was the meaningless slogan that Economics Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (The Greens) issued at the beginning of the Corona crisis. The State Court has made it clear that the matter is not that simple. But the verdict hardly worries the Greens. In the coalition negotiations in Berlin, the eco-party is demonstrating that debts are a good thing in their eyes. In Hesse, the CDU finance minister has to hold his head for the failed debt policy of the coalition. That damages himself and what is left of the Union's brand essence in the black-green coalition.
In Frankfurt, Hesse's largest municipality, in the state capital Wiesbaden and at the national level, the Greens have distanced themselves from the Union.
The debacle before the State Court now strengthens the critics of the alliance in the ranks of the CDU.
Can the ailing Prime Minister still bring the centrifugal forces under control?
The next few weeks will be the most exciting since the coalition was founded in 2013.