Also there: Heintje, a stubborn Juso boss, and Markus Söder in his new favorite tent.
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Love readers,
Unfortunately, I can’t spare you the following opening sentence on December 6th: When the coalition partners from the SPD, Greens and FDP looked into their shoes this morning, there was still no new budget. Even the nuts that still need to be cracked weren’t brought to the government by Santa Claus; rather, the Federal Constitutional Court threw them at the feet of Olaf Scholz, Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner three weeks ago.
When I was a little boy, Santa Claus came to our house. I had to sing a song to get presents and not be put in the sack. I chose the song when I was about five years old “Mama” by Heintje, a child star from Holland who, at the end of the 1960s, was already singing the German that Rudi Carrell made famous decades later, and who probably none of my young Berlin colleagues know anymore.
So I sang, waving my arms back and forth in rhythm, and finally began to cry with a mixture of emotion at the song and fear of Santa Claus. There is a Super 8 film of it, but I’m keeping it under wraps as long as I still want to be taken a little seriously as a political journalist, even if the film would fit well into the RTL program.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, because the Santa sack I escaped from perfectly symbolizes the coalition’s problem. For years, Olaf Scholz acted like a saint and presented one gift after another, first as finance minister and then as chancellor. Nothing was too expensive, nothing was unaffordable. Bazookas and Doppelwumms have never met the requirements for child-friendly toys, but it was only the Federal Constitutional Court that finally rigorously restricted the use of these financial wonder weapons.
Now the SPD, Greens and FDP have to cobble together a new budget, something they have so far failed to do. The Chancellor is not Santa Claus, and his coalition friends are not called Ruprecht or Krampus, but Robert and Christian, which is why Scholz cannot push them around like servants at will. By the way, if the three don’t come to an agreement soon, they could – to stay with the metaphor – hit the sack straight away.
In recent days we have looked at many aspects of the budget crisis. If you want to bring yourself up to date, I recommend this overview, which has already survived one night but has lost none of its relevance. And if you want to know what can happen if nothing happens between the three main coalition members, you’ve come to the right place.
A long-running issue in the discussions about budget cuts was citizens’ money. My colleague Jan Rosenkranz, who is actually a very sociable person, was so annoyed by this debate that he allowed himself a digital outburst of anger, which you can find here.
And my colleague Lisa Becke, who is not afraid of any social policy issue, no matter how complicated it is, as I am of Santa Claus, wrote down in a very understandable way why there is no longer anything to be gained from citizens’ money for the 2024 budget anyway. She also spoke to economist Achim Truger about why cuts in social spending might help the coalition patch up budget holes, but could also harm the economy.
If you still feel like it after all these considerations, you can still read my column in which I address the question of why Christian Lindner doesn’t use any word as sparingly as the word save.
PERSON OF THE WEEK
The situation is particularly tricky for Olaf Scholz because he will not only be in office for exactly two years to the day next Friday, but will also meet comrades at the SPD party conference who, in view of poor poll numbers, are no longer willing to show their willless loyalty . One person who is likely to attack the Chancellor harshly is the new Juso chairman Philipp Türmer, who thinks that Scholz should now remember his election promise of more respect. My colleague Florian Schillat trudged through the Berlin snow with Türmer and got to know the Chancellor’s tormentor better:
AND OTHERWISE?
Nicholas is left-wing. Well, not quite yet, but on this December 6th, the Left faction in the Bundestag dissolved. The MPs continue to sit in the plenary session – the larger group around Dietmar Bartsch, the smaller group around Sahra Wagenknecht – but they no longer want to have anything to do with each other. My colleague Miriam Hollstein researched how to dissolve such a faction and who pays for it.
LOTS OF FAVORITE
Your highlight of the week…
… was the interview that my colleagues Gregor Peter Schmitz and Veit Medick conducted with Markus Söder.
The Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU leader must feel similar to Munich drivers after the heavy snowfall of the past few days in the Union’s chancellor candidate debate: blocked. His own chances are not that good at the moment, but in the interview you can read a lot about what skills Söder expects from a suitable candidate for chancellor. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether he might still be referring to himself.
My highlight of the week…
… was Markus Söder again – in his social media greeting for the first Advent. You can see the Bavarian Prime Minister lighting a candle and making himself comfortable in an armchair with a cup. The highlight, however, is the huge tent with Christmas motifs, which Söder wears a sweater like others. Oh, that is a sweater? Oh, sorry!
I wish you a good week!
Nicholas Fried
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