Ulrich Reitz’s Comment: The government is finished! It now has two possibilities for a fresh start
If we consider the chairperson of the Greens, the budget deliberations were about averting a “state crisis.” However, since Ricarda Lang is often incorrect, we do not have a state crisis. We only have a government crisis. Bad enough.
This government crisis is serious and deep, as it was only about 17 billion. 60 billion over four years, but only 17 billion for next year’s budget. The federal budget is nearly 450 billion euros. It was about three percent of that. Sometimes marriages fail because one squeezes the toothpaste and the other wants to roll up the tube. That’s kind of how you can imagine the conflict in the traffic light coalition.
As with a marriage: The love is gone
Wait – the actual conflict. That is if this government was still somewhat rational. A billion here, a deferral of expenditure there, the later introduction of a supposed favorite project of one of the partners – with goodwill, they could have easily managed that. What’s the truth of householders in the private sector: Ten percent always works.
The actual tragedy is the lack of common will – it just doesn’t exist anymore. The goodwill has vanished from the coalition partners, just as love sometimes eludes old married couples. Privately, something new happens, but the government is not there yet. The chancellor still believes he’s doing everything right and the public is just too stupid to see through his master plan.
Unfortunately, the public has long realized that the chancellor and his entourage often have no clothes. Scholz is experiencing what the emperor in the fairy tale did, making himself increasingly ridiculous. Trust has long been gone, and now the commonality is gone. This is not a reason for schadenfreude, because the damage is too great and the joy too small. The joy of failure also makes one small, Friedrich Merz understood that the fastest when he said after the verdict from Karlsruhe on the 60 embezzled billions, it’s not the time to triumph.
Two possibilities for a fresh start
Let’s put it here as we would explain it to our friends over a beer in the evening: This government was built on deceit and lies. The lie – thanks to Karlsruhe – has been exposed. And with it, the government. Now it stands at nothing. Time for a fresh start.
There are two possibilities:
Possibility 1: The government recognizes that reality is different from what they thought. It reflects on its responsibility to the people, whom each of them has sworn an oath to. It first takes stock by at least once examining the usefulness of all major budget items.
Does it make sense to transfer nearly six billion euros to India for development aid? Does it make sense to continuously increase the minimum wage and the citizens’ money and do nothing about the ever-increasing costs of pensions? Is that really fair to future generations? And subsidizing, which is not “investing” in old industries, with billions of euros that only delay an already foreseeable end – is that really meaningful? And is it socially just to subsidize every chip job that is supposed to be created in the new states with two million euros per worker?
It’s not as if these questions suddenly arise out of nowhere, as if everything is new. Economic institutes like the one from Kielcriticizing for many years the excessive subsidies – and nothing happens. But now is the time for action.
Continuously accumulating debt is the desire of the SPD and the Greens. The FDP is the party bravely resisting it. Hence the conflict now. A red-green coalition could have easily agreed within five minutes at the expense of the next generation. Incurring debts is always the easiest option. But it is also a political surrender.
In a poly-crisis, that means: remedy. Responsibility. Take a stand. And again: It doesn’t even need a speech of Churchillian dimensions. 17 billion is not something to found blood, sweat, and tears on.
Now for the second possibility:
The government declares its failure in financial matters. This is a valid reason, and besides, this coalition was a union of the incompatible from the start. In that case, the Union enters the federal government, and there are new elections after a (staged) vote of no confidence next summer. The script for this has already been written by the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU).
Or: The Chancellor immediately poses the question of confidence in parliament. After its – agreed – failure, the Federal President initiates new elections. It is the least likely but still a possible scenario that a majority is found in the current parliament for Friedrich Merz in a constructive vote of no confidence.
This situation is not what the Germans deserve
Whatever may come, it cannot continue as it is. The Germans did not vote for this situation. They do not deserve it either. However, even in this situation, we should and can have trust in the stability of our democracy and its institutions. There is no need for panic. Because we do not have a state crisis. It is only a government that has come to its temporary end. Nothing less, but also nothing more.
