There have been wanted and unwanted coalitions in the history of the Federal Republic.
In which category do the traffic lights belong, the more likely it will be that they will come about with each passing day of almost noiseless negotiations?
The SPD would have preferred a purely red-green alliance just like the Greens.
The FDP would have preferred to go to Jamaica a second time.
But that changed with election day.
The three partners seem so positive from the perspective of a joint government that they presented an initiative together on the most important topic of the previous year and a half, the corona pandemic, long before the election of Chancellor.
Three of them don't seem to be able to wait.
In person, this applies to Olaf Scholz, who shows cheerful confidence and enthusiasm for Chancellor, as if he had already been elected.
Lindner leads the FDP tightly
However, the traffic light construction contains many imponderables, not only because the federal government would rule in this constellation for the first time. How much life of their own, especially the red and green parties, when they are confronted with the rigors of governance, is open. The FDP is run tightly by its chairman Christian Lindner, but the party's last four years in government from 2009 to 2013 were by no means a proof of government art.
Scholz has a few points on the credit side. He and his party are experienced through almost continuous government practice since 1998. There is a second strong figure in the party, the former Juso boss Kevin Kühnert, who has proven in the fight for party leadership how effective he can act against Scholz. But unlike Oskar Lafontaine in 1998, Kühnert is not the loser in the fight for the Chancellery, who could seek revenge and develop destructive power in the long term. Kühnert is three decades younger than Scholz, has time and knows that a well-functioning federal government led by social democrats would be useful to him.
All in all, the expected coalition has what it takes to become a stable structure.
Because Scholz and his partners know that even the most sensible content-related projects are worthless if the government does not have the strength to implement them, all of their political goals seem to be coordinated in such a way that the stability of the future coalition is not endangered.
The price for the chancellorship
An example of this are the labor market reforms that Scholz helped to implement under Schröder's leadership and that drove like a hatchet into the SPD under the keyword Hartz IV.
Olaf Scholz has experienced everything that can be learned about the art of government from this example.
Therefore, he knows that a change to the Hartz laws is part of the price that his comrades demand for the chancellorship.
How Scholz wants to make this circle square is shown in the exploratory paper that the traffic light presented early on. Instead of the basic security (Hartz IV), a "citizen's benefit" should be introduced. The hated term should therefore be deleted, but the cooperation of the benefit recipients should continue to apply. It remains to be seen whether the sanctions rejected by many on the left will be lifted. It only says that which rules should be continued will be checked. The FDP should be pleased that the opportunities for additional income will be increased.
There are other examples.
The SPD approaches the arming of drones, against which there is still resistance from the left, like a cat's paw.
Or the tax and duty burden.
The increases that are often desired in the red-green camp are rejected in the exploratory paper using the examples of income, company and value added tax.
Instead, the income from the global minimum taxation, which Scholz was instrumental in driving, should be used.
Apparently red, green and yellow can live with this.
Scholz makes no secret of his consideration for the FDP.
He will not have forgotten that Jamaica failed four years ago because Lindner was afraid of being ripped off by the Union and the Greens.
How much bigger must the worries be with red-green?
Scholz has mastered the art of making compromises that do not shake the government but do not force the Chancellor to betray his convictions.
He experienced the courageous, sometimes brutal Schröder up close, as well as the tactful, persistent Merkel.
He resembles the latter more than his party colleague.
Merkel was not the chancellor who would have pushed through a historic project on the scale of a European monetary union.
However, she defended this legacy of her predecessor Kohl.
It is the same with Scholz.
The Hartz laws were politically enforced by Schröder.
Scholz will try to save as much of this legacy as possible.
This way of governing could shape the traffic lights.
Germans have been used to it for 16 years.