Is it getting ugly now?
Christian Lindner gave an interview to his esteemed competition, or more precisely: to a colleague from “Zeit”. In it he says two sentences that could trigger something in the traffic lights, especially the SPD. And not a spontaneous standing party.
Briefly to put it into perspective: Federal Finance Minister Lindner is currently working on the federal budget for 2025, money is tight, billions have to be saved, at the same time more money should be spent on defense, the traffic lights are facing tough battles in the next few months. There will be tugging, haggling and arguments; ministers will be able to point to other departments and claim that there is much more to be gained there. One can assume that it will be ugly.
Against this background, Lindner now says to his colleague: “The sharply increasing social spending, which no longer only prevents need but also redistributes it on a large scale, is in competition with all other tasks: climate protection, education, infrastructure, defense. And necessary relief from taxes and contributions for the working population also competes with social budgets.
Social spending is for the SPD what the energy transition is for the Greens, Lindner is for his Porsche and the FDP is for saying no to tax increases: non-negotiable.
It's not really surprising that Lindner would like to make social cuts, but in politics it often depends on the timing. So why these sentences now? To provoke? To show the SPD the tools? Or is this budget the lever for Lindner to leave the coalition early?
The Chancellor will have the opportunity to ask him about it this evening. Scholz, Lindner and Robert Habeck meet for a discussion in the Chancellery.
More background here: Lindner's savings plan is already meeting resistance
A party on the brink
But Christian Lindner is not only finance minister, but also head of the FDP. In recent decades, this has been a party that has been easy to make fun of. About their political flexibility, the dentist quota among their voters, about their sometimes shrill, often quirky staff, about Genscher's ears (which one no longer does today, keyword body shaming), Lindner's Porsche (yes, I'm sorry). My colleagues Christoph Schult and Severin Weiland don't do any of that.
The two are responsible for the FDP in the SPIEGEL capital office. Instead of taking the easy route, instead of simply making fun of the Liberals a little bit, they published a major report that took a very serious look at this party, which has been in power for over two years, but sometimes still acts like an opposition party Ketamine.
“The FDP, which turned 75 years old last December, seems perplexed and unsettled these days,” write colleagues. "Joining the traffic light coalition a good two years ago didn't do it any good." Since then, the FDP has lost members and elections, fallen out with its coalition partners and lost even more elections, which leads colleagues to their core question: "What does the country need for? the Free Democratic Party at all anymore?”
What follows is a journey through the party, from Heppenheim via Erfurt to Korschenbroich, it is instructive and entertaining. What answer do your colleagues come to in the end? Read for yourself.
The whole story here: At a loss in the death zone
Soft tones to Taurus
Olaf Scholz has had to take political beatings for many things over the course of his career. For Agenda 2010, his gaps in memory on the topic of Cum Ex, a G20 summit that got slightly out of hand. And, of course, for his refusal to give Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
The Union, but also parts of the Greens and FDP, have hammered the Chancellor in recent weeks, as if the fate of Ukraine depended solely on this weapon. As if Scholz was handing the country over to the Russian invaders with his no. The Union submitted its own Taurus motions in the Bundestag, doing what an opposition party has to do. She drove the Chancellor ahead of her.
Against this background, I find the interview that my colleague Florian Gathmann conducted with Jan Redmann, the CDU's top candidate for the state elections in Brandenburg on September 22nd, very interesting. Redmann expresses himself much more cautiously on the subject of Taurus, he weighs his words.
He initially evades the question of whether he is for or against a delivery, then he says: If the Bundestag faction supports the delivery of Taurus "based on the knowledge of our experts," "of course that also has my support." Then he says: "However, I have pointed out, together with other East German politicians, that prudence is the order of the day." It's "above all about the tone," says Redmann. "Some statements from the Union faction were not as prudent as we would have liked."
It may have something to do with the fact that Redmann is running in the east, where voters view German involvement in Ukraine even more skeptically than in the west of the republic. However, the Union as a whole is now much quieter when it comes to the Taurus issue. It may have been noticed in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus that the poll numbers for the Chancellor's SPD party have recently increased slightly after weeks of the Taurus debate.
The whole story here: "The effects of the war are much more noticeable in the East than in the West"
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Winner of the day…
...is frigate captain Inka von Puttkamer. Today she takes command of the 3rd Minesweeper Squadron in Kiel and, as the German Press Agency announces, she is “the first woman to command a combat unit of the German Navy.” Congratulations. Ms. von Puttkamer is in her early 40s and is likely to go far in the Navy. Maybe even up to admiral? Or do you say admiral? In any case, there are none of them yet. It's about time.
Woman leads Navy combat unit for the first time
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Yours Christoph Hickmann, head of the SPIEGEL capital office