Scholz in tow
Chancellor Merkel is getting the world in the right mood for the traffic lights
Before Federal President Steinmeier handed over her certificate of discharge, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) listened to a speech with Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) Steinmeier
© Bernd Von Jutrczenka / DPA
A failure of the traffic light talks? Also thinks Chancellor Angela Merkel is unlikely, it seems. She lets her alleged successor shake a few important hands.
When the beginning and the end meet, they form a circle – and even if the Union tried for a long time to square it by stubbornly sticking to a Jamaica option, the new government is taking shape.
“I firmly assume that we will now get a traffic light,” admitted CSU leader Markus Söder, who no longer believes that the coalition negotiations between the SPD, Greens and FDP in Berlin will fail. Had he seen the federal press conference before? There was a sentence that could have made his statement more reliable: “The traffic light also works before it exists”, said the Greens co-parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt, who outlined the pandemic plan for the coming months with the possible alliance partners. At least the issue of Corona has already taken over, so the impression.
And even the liberals who long been on in coalition poker hard to get did, now appear to be very impressed – both visually, when, for example, snapshots are shared with future coalition partners, as well as verbally when Party leader Christian Lindner and Secretary General Volker Wissing declare in unison: a failure of the negotiations is “not an option”. Already is from the “FDP and the traffic light miracle” the speech.
Olaf Scholz can make this confident. The SPD politician is to be elected as the next Federal Chancellor in St. Nicholas Week, according to the self-imposed goal of the traffic light parties. And apparently the incumbent Angela Merkel (CDU), who has been in office since Tuesday until the next federal government is sworn in, sees the traffic lights flashing on the horizon.
Handover with a signal effect
This coming weekend she will present Scholz as her likely successor at the G20 summit in Rome, at least that is an impression. Merkel had invited the SPD politician to take part in her bilateral meeting with other heads of state and government on the sidelines of the summit, government circles said on Thursday.
Accordingly, many hands should be shaken: Meetings are planned with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the heads of state or government of Argentina, Singapore, India and South Korea and not least with US President Joe Biden. A meeting of four at the top level with the USA, France, Great Britain and Germany on Iran policy is also being planned. Will the next Federal Chancellor be presented there? Scholz is officially traveling in his capacity as finance minister to take part in a joint meeting of finance and health ministers.
From the joint appearances Merkel and Scholz ‘will emit “a special signal effect”, it was said in government circles. Germany could thus “signal a lot of continuity in the G20 process” and demonstrate in an exemplary manner how a smooth change of government works. It is “definitely a historical thing” that “the predecessor with the possible successor will appear” at the upcoming summit.
Neither Merkel nor Scholz, who have so far appeared as rather sober politicians: should burst with emotions when they appear together and exuberantly spread this possibly historical event. Either way: The previous Vice Chancellor will make his debut on the big summit stage in Rome. However, this will also be due to the fact (and Merkel’s decency) that the greatest possible political restraint generally applies to a managing government.
There is consensus that she should no longer make decisions that bind a successor government. This also applies to foreign policy. Since the incumbent Chancellor still has important foreign policy appointments ahead of her, she should also have her finance minister and likely successor with her as a kind of “watchdog”. At the beginning of next week, Merkel will speak for three minutes at the world climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. There she will not say anything that is not in agreement with the three parties that are currently negotiating a coalition agreement.
In terms of protocol, Merkel may still be the boss, but it already seems like a kind of handover to Scholz – the circle is full. Would she be able to sleep peacefully at all with the idea that a social democrat could rule again in the future? “Yes,” replied Merkel in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. Of course there will be political differences. “But I can sleep peacefully.”