Three members of the Bundestag, one red, one yellow, one green, the traffic light in miniature – how was the year for you?

The three men know each other quite well, because all three come from Bochum.

They campaigned against each other, each for themselves, and still all won.

The red got the direct mandate, but the yellow and the green were able to enter parliament via the state lists.

Friederike Haupt

Political correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

It is now the end of November, almost exactly a year since their party leaders signed the coalition agreement.

The three MPs have busy schedules, as is the case shortly before Christmas and as MPs in general.

But they take an hour to talk.

A conference room in the Bundestag, outside it is twilight, inside a quick greeting: the MPs are on first name terms, the red one has the big say, the green one cheerfully counters, the yellow one listens to both and then says something.

The red one is Axel Schäfer, 70, a veteran of the SPD, a member for 53 years.

He was already a Europe consultant under Willy Brandt and a member of the European Parliament.

He has been a member of the Bundestag for twenty years.

The yellow one is Olaf in der Beek, 55, who has also been a member of the FDP since a young age, albeit with a break – he resigned for a few years because his party had become too client-political for him.

He has been back for nine years and has been in the Bundestag for five years.

And the Green is called Max Lucks, 25, he has only been a member of Parliament for a year.

Bad mood among voters

So what was that year for the government?

She had set herself high goals.

Germany must be efficient, especially in crises.

The most urgent task is to defeat the pandemic.

That sounds like something from another time – and it is.

Meanwhile, war is raging in Europe, and food and energy prices have exploded.

Every week surveys report how bad the mood is.

Sometimes it is said that three quarters of Germans are dissatisfied with how the government is handling the crisis.

Or: Less than a third are satisfied with Chancellor Scholz.

An institute reported this week that Germans between the ages of 30 and 59 are more pessimistic than they have been for a long time.

And the three MPs aren't sitting there with a proud chest and a campaign smile, but rather seriously and thoughtfully.

All three still think that the traffic light government was a good idea.

They had already thought so during the election campaign.

There was one evening, says the Green, when he and the FDP man smoked another after a performance, and then he, the Green, said: "Yes, Olaf, I wouldn't think a traffic light was bad at all." And he remembers, that's how it was, and that impression endured.

Schäfer, der Rote, puts it on record that the most important thing is "that the factual conflicts are much less than my dear friends from the FDP believed", which of course is a bit of cheek, since he likes to talk about "dear friends", when he means the ones that annoy him.

But he is definitely less annoyed by the FDP than he used to be, since they now see the SPD with new eyes.