analysis
Chancellor Scholz comes back calmly from his summer vacation. At the citizens’ dialogue in Erfurt, he does not answer all questions – but wants to set a “course of confidence”.
If you ask Olaf Scholz what the mood is like in Germany right now, he says: “We are living in times of great upheaval.” They were always worrying and afraid. The chancellor has great understanding for this – “everything else would also be unusual”.
Scholz is on the former garden show site in Erfurt. A little more than a hundred people sit around him, randomly selected participants in the Chancellor Talks. Thuringia is the first stop for the civil dialogue after the 2023 summer break.
Trend for Scholz and Ampel points downwards
Scholz had previously been in France on vacation for a few days. He left the field before and during that time to opposition leader Friedrich Merz. The CDU boss made several missteps with statements about the AfD, which is just as strong in the polls. For weeks, the opposition dominated reporting.
During the same period, the traffic light did not score on any major hot topics. It is true that all parties in the dispute over the heating law are keeping their feet still. But inflation, for example, remains high. Instead of talking about the next “boom”, the coalition is talking about austerity measures and raising sales tax in the catering trade again.
When it comes to asylum policy, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s new deportation plans have only triggered cautious reactions in the SPD and in the coalition. Berlin’s position on the Ukraine war remains unchanged: the next military aid worth millions is being planned.
And against the recession and the “de-industrialization” conjured up by the CDU, AfD and parts of the economy, a cheaper industrial electricity price could possibly help. However, the traffic light is also at odds here.
Poll high for the AfD
In the current ARD Germany trend just under a fifth of those surveyed are satisfied with the government’s work. Scholz’ own satisfaction value is 31 percent – lower than ever. If there were a federal election on Sunday, the SPD, Greens and FDP together would get 39 percent. The AfD, in turn, stands at 21 percent – a record value. Here in Thuringia, where a state election is due in 2024, the Höcke party would be by far the strongest force.
At the beginning of the summer, Scholz called the AfD a “bad mood party” whose electoral successes in Sonneberg and Raguhn-Jeßnitz would remain exceptions. The traffic light is not to blame for the poll high for the largely right-wing party.
Good Mood Chancellor
The chancellor reappears in Erfurt as relaxed as he said goodbye. He grins his Scholz grin and lets people talk. Scholz ignores that a questioner speaks of “political caste”. He calmly tells a woman that Health Minister Karl Lauterbach is not paid by the pharmaceutical industry.
The serenity shown also means that Scholz tells a lot about how well he has made money outside and inside politics. In old age he is more than secure.
Immediately afterwards, a pensioner from Eisenach said that she and her husband had to continue working despite their pension – she in gastronomy, he as a taxi driver. The cost of private health insurance almost crushed her. Citizen income recipients, on the other hand, would enjoy life. Scholz begins his answer with: “It’s good that you are so diligent.”
The sentence could seem out of place given the couple’s situation, but is part of Scholz’s strategy for the evening. He either praises people or agrees with them on a detail. Then Scholz picks up and draws a long line – the chancellor, a man with an eye for details and the big picture.
Scholz can avoid the heating dispute
Often, however, the sheet is more of a bullet point list, at the end of which the actual answer is given. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all. The presenter doesn’t always follow up.
A small-town hairstylist asks how she’s going to pay rising minimum wages. Customers would no longer keep up with the price increases for a haircut. Scholz talks about the many ex-low wage earners who would have benefited from the minimum wage in the east. Of adjustments to social contributions. Fighting wage dumping. He does not answer the craftswoman’s question.
Scholz is spared questions about asylum policy, the heating law or the ongoing dispute at traffic lights. In return, he is in good spirits defending the end of nuclear power, the most far-reaching end of combustion engines, and cuts in political education work.
Where the Scholz grin disappears is the topic of Ukraine aid. He doesn’t let them shake. If Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ideas about war as power politics were to prevail, says Scholz, it would be “a fire that we can no longer extinguish” in Europe. At this moment he scans the faces of those present around him.
“Course of Confidence” against the AfD
But what about the bad mood in the country? What is Scholz doing against those who would “undermine” democracy? “Oppose”, “defend freedom”, set a “course of confidence”, says the Chancellor.
Scholz is trying to convey confidence in the future of the economy. He refers to the recent large settlements of several chip manufacturers in Germany, especially in the east. The industry giant TSMC announced just this week that it wanted to come to Dresden. As with Intel in Magdeburg, the federal government is securing the factory construction with several billion euros. It’s an expensive bet.
According to the embassy, Germany is on the right track. According to Scholz, with the switch to e-mobility, the future export of hydrogen and wind power technology and climate-neutral industry, we are avoiding increasingly fierce competition for fossil resources that are becoming increasingly scarce. That, Scholz thinks, is “by the way, a good opportunity for us in Germany”.