At the party conference, Christian Lindner appears downright statesmanlike. The fact that one of the most conspicuous personalities behind him, defense expert Strack-Zimmermann, is to lead the Liberals in the European elections shows that the FDP is already thinking about the next federal election campaign.
The FDP is grappling with five defeats in state elections; in Lower Saxony and Berlin the liberals have even been kicked out of the parliaments. Based on surveys, they had actually identified issues that resonated with voters. At least the leadership of the federal party around the chairman Christian Lindner and general secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai has identified a problem in the analysis, in addition to country-specific factors, to which they attribute the weakness of the liberals: The top personnel in the countries are not well known, even where the FDP was prominently represented with ministers in the government.