Christian Lindner: Minister between all chairs

Many FDP supporters miss the clear profile. The traffic light partners SPD and Greens, on the other hand, grumble about the finance minister’s tax policy. Criticism rolls off Lindner.

Christian Lindner is a master of words. Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he has been calling renewable energies “liberation energies.” He describes his ministry as the “Enabling Ministry”. And when asked when the legalization of cannabis will come, the Minister of Finance shows that he also speaks youth language: “Bubatz” will become legal in 2023, according to his forecast.

But he has made reliability in financial matters his trademark. What he put into words at the tax forum of the Central Association of German Crafts and Trades: “Don’t be afraid – with this coalition and this Federal Minister of Finance there will be no tax increases.”

A year ago, he named two conditions for his FDP’s entry into the coalition with the SPD and the Greens: no tax increases and no relaxation of the debt brake. Both succeed only to a limited extent. Just a few days ago, under pressure from the EU, Lindner had to agree to an excess profit tax for individual energy companies. And this despite the fact that, from his point of view, it is legally on shaky ground.

Solid steward or record debt maker?

As for his promise to keep the debt brake, opposition politicians like Mathias Middelberg from the CDU blame him for the many debt-financed shadow budgets. Lindner is a “record debt maker” – the finance minister’s budget is not honest and not sustainable.

Lindner has to put up with similar criticism from the Federal Court of Auditors. Lindner has drawn up a federal budget for the coming year without an exception to the debt brake – after all, the first since 2019. But at the same time he had credit authorizations with a volume of 360 billion euros approved for the coming years this year. This finances the costs of the energy price brakes, the billions for the German armed forces and expenditure on climate protection.

Desire to “work according to the textbook”

Lindner admits that this is “not ideal”: “It would also be my wish to work according to textbooks in an ideal world.” But the crisis leaves no other choice. His motive is not to cover up, but to return to normal household management as quickly as possible.

Due to the specific determination of which expenses may be processed via the so-called special funds, the budget remains protected from special requests from the ministries. In any case, he can be judged by the fact that he is “returning to the solidity of public finances after the crisis and after the acute war.”

Persistent in fighting Cold Progression

But even in times of crisis, Lindner makes a difference. He persistently pushes through tax relief, in particular to mitigate the consequences of so-called cold progression. Actually, that’s no relief at all, says Lindner: without corrections to the tax rate, the state would be the secret winner of inflation.

The coalition partners SPD and Greens are clearly grumbling, after all, higher income earners in absolute numbers benefit most from such corrections. But Lindner prevails – and enjoys the support of the Chancellor. Both say that politicians must not only support the lowest income brackets, but also do something for “the working middle class”.

Lindner and Habeck – “like Tom and Jerry”?

Within the government, Lindner initially maintained a friendly relationship with Robert Habeck, who probably would have liked to become Minister of Finance. There are discussions in which the two humorously tease each other – such as when Lindner admits that he is a friend of the five-liter car, which, unlike Habeck, does not refer to the consumption but to the cubic capacity.

The familiar you of the two becomes rarer over time. There are also several problems between the two ministries. In the dispute over nuclear power, the chancellor ultimately has to clarify with a word of power. CDU faction deputy Jens Spahn scoffs that Habeck and Lindner are not “plisch and plum” as was said at the end of the 1960s about the finance and economics ministers at the time, Franz Josef Strauss (CSU) and Karl Schiller (SPD); they are rather like “Tom and Jerry, like cat and mouse”.

But that doesn’t bother Lindner either. With sentences like that, he sits on the government bench and smiles. When he said yes to his partner, TV journalist Franca Lehfeldt, on Sylt in July, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was there, as was CDU leader Friedrich Merz. Which also shows: Despite the traffic light, Lindner is still in contact with politicians in the Union – especially since, as FDP chairman in the 2021 election campaign, he emphasized the similarities with the CDU/CSU.

His message to “foreign” FDP supporters

For his FDP, on the other hand, things are not going so well: in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, the party is being thrown out of the government, in Lower Saxony even out of the state parliament. Many FDP supporters are strangers to traffic lights, as prominent liberals such as Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki note.

Lindner, who said in 2017 that it is better not to govern than to govern wrongly, now says to these critics: “It is better to lead a country forward from the center than to watch it from the outside as it moves to the left becomes.”

Incidentally, Lindner adds with a wink, it is a “deplorable reality, but I have to acknowledge it too: the FDP failed to achieve an absolute majority in the federal elections.” There he is again: the master of words who, despite all the criticism, always tries to radiate composure and confidence.