Angry farmers, angry citizens, unrest in the SPD: the Chancellor and his coalition are losing favor with voters. Now even Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is criticizing the government.
At least Olaf Scholz cannot be blamed. Despite the farmers’ protests, miserable poll numbers and growing unrest in his SPD, the Chancellor is not falling into activism. Apart from the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Scholz will only attend two previously announced appointments next week. On Thursday he received a delegation of carnivalists at the Chancellery, and on Friday he took part in the funeral service for Franz Beckenbauer in Munich. However, things shouldn’t continue as quietly as Scholz started the year. In a three-hour, sometimes tough debate during the retreat at the start of the year, he promised the members of the SPD parliamentary group that people would get to know their chancellor from an unfamiliar side – clear and combative.