It is a brief moment.

After weeks of negotiations on the goals of the first traffic light government at federal level, the ceremonial ceremony for the signing of the coalition agreement lasts ten minutes.

From 9.08 to 9.18 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Olaf Scholz, future Chancellor and Grand Master of the sober Hanseatic staging, speaks only a few sentences in the hall full of journalists, cameras and microphones.

Very good results have been negotiated with one another.

If cooperation continues as it did in the coalition negotiations, then it will be a good time.

Of course, Scholz does not forget the pandemic, which will require the "full strength and attention" of the new government to fight.

Eckart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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Markus Wehner

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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The others who are on stage in Berlin's “Futurium” also speak briefly. Nobody would talk longer than the boss. The Greens chairman and soon to be Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate, Robert Habeck, points out that there are also differences between the partners. But now one is "a government". He has big words for their task - beyond the fight against the pandemic. The "largest industrial nation in Europe, fourth largest in the world" must be brought on a climate-neutral course.

FDP leader Christian Lindner, placed between Scholz and Habeck, albeit a little behind them, says that we have talked for a long time about progress, and work on it is now beginning.

The two SPD chairmen Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans and the head of the Greens and soon-to-be Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock are also allowed to say a few more sentences before all the speakers, as well as the parliamentary group chairmen and general secretaries, sign the three copies of the contract.

But it is already clear who the bosses of the three coalition partners are.

Scholz's old weakness

A little later, the three who will matter are seated on the stage of the Federal Press Conference: Federal Chancellor Scholz, Vice Chancellor Habeck and Finance Minister Lindner. Of course, they are not yet, only almost. Because the chancellor election will not take place until this Wednesday. But the questions that are put to the big three of the red-green-yellow coalition in the federal press conference are of course as if the gentlemen were already in office. It goes all over the place, from Corona to China, America and Russia to the budget and climate policy.

Scholz speaks too softly, it is an old weakness that he can only remedy with great difficulty. And he's tied up a little shorter than usual. Perhaps that has something to do with the situation he has brought himself into: He cannot yet speak with full force as Chancellor, even if he is expected to do so. That is why he bypasses some difficult questions, remains in general, is the secret keeper.

Above all, however, Scholz emphasizes, unlike at the SPD party conference on the weekend, the continuity with the previous government.

That is only right and fair, because Scholz played a leading role in it.

When it comes to foreign policy, it is all the more plausible; there are few differences between the grand coalition and the traffic light.

China is difficult, but Germany also has to cooperate with countries that have different ideas from Germany and the West.

Lindner points to the Chinese domestic market, which will continue to play its role for the German economy, but also to the observance of human rights, which is important for the traffic light coalition.

It is about the further development of relations with China, but "from a European and transatlantic perspective, not only from a German".