The Greens go ahead, they go further than their two partners and they go the path that is the most difficult to calculate. As early as this Thursday afternoon, they begin the process of having the coalition agreement approved by the party – much earlier than the SPD and FDP. And unlike these, a party congress should not accept the agreement. All around 125,000 members of the Greens are called to a ballot for ten days.
With the Greens, the grassroots traditionally look far more critically at what their party leadership is doing than with the FDP and SPD. However, the party is nowhere near as combative as it was in the 1990s, when it first came into the federal government alongside the SPD. Under their party chairmen Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, the Greens, who once grew in the struggle against authorities and the establishment, appeared more calm and united than ever before in their almost 40-year history. So it would be a surprise if they should reject the coalition agreement. The party leadership will still have to do persuasive work.
Baerbock made it clear at the weekend that the mood of the Greens is no longer as good as it was at the beginning of the coalition negotiations. “We were really fed up,” she said on Saturday at a state party conference in Brandenburg. Because one had the feeling that only the Greens were responsible for climate protection (again).
That was the main concern of the Greens during the election campaign: limiting the rise in global warming to 1.5 degrees, phasing out coal by 2030, plus energy money that should cushion the additional burdens for everyone – these were their most important demands. And now? Everyone signs the general goal, the end of coal-fired power generation in 2030 is vague in the contract, the coalition partners want to “develop” a kind of energy money. These are at best partial successes. Habeck argues that what is important is not beautiful long-distance goals, but also, for example, the specific expansion of renewable energies. The Greens were actually able to push through ambitious targets – as well as a major ministry for economics and climate protection, in which they can control everything. At least if the rest of the coalition, not least an SPD chancellor and an FDP finance minister, give them enough money. To do this, they occupy the Ministry of Agriculture – the importance of agriculture for climate change is often underestimated.
Esken expects widespread approval
Approving the paper is likely to be facilitated by the fact that, in conjunction with the SPD, they have pushed through important demands in labor and social policy. The most important: the minimum wage of twelve euros an hour, which the presumed future Chancellor Olaf Scholz in particular put at the center of his election campaign. In addition, Hartz IV is to be replaced by a new, higher citizen’s money – both concerns of the SPD and the Greens.
“I assume that approval will be very high,” says SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken about the mood in her party. This is anyway in a kind of intoxication since it – which half a year ago was believed dead – suddenly became the strongest force in the new Bundestag. Her eternal and debilitating suffering as a junior partner in a grand coalition has come to an end, now she will soon be the chancellor. And because they were able to negotiate other important points in the traffic light contract in addition to the ones mentioned, the approval of the SPD should be easier than the green base. To name a few examples: The pension will not be reduced and will remain stable at 48 percent, the entry age at 67 years. The rise in rents in expensive cities will be slowed down, social housing will be expanded, and homeowners will have to share in the rising heating costs for oil and gas.
But the SPD wouldn’t be the SPD if it weren’t for nagging already. “For us, an open society also includes a humane refugee policy,” criticizes Jessica Rosenthal, the federal chairwoman of the SPD youth. The jusos, which are always critical of the government, meet at the weekend in Frankfurt am Main, so there could be further criticism. Scholz, however, will be able to counter them: apprenticeship guarantee, lower voting age to 16 years, cannabis legalization – all Juso demands, everything achieved. Rosenthal also already admits that one can work with the coalition agreement.
The Greens and the SPD could not enforce their plan to include the self-employed and civil servants in the statutory pension insurance, to increase taxes for high earners and to relieve low earners. And that’s the point at which the FDP could jubilate – if it didn’t curb its euphoria in public. She is probably doing this in order not to provoke her future coalition partners. The Liberals did not actually get through one of their most important goals of lowering the tax burden for companies and high earners, but in return they achieved their even more important goal: no tax increases. Your second big election campaign hit (“No loosening of the debt brake”) is also in the coalition agreement. From 2023 on, their specifications are to be complied with again. In addition, the FDP is allowed to occupy some strong ministries. So why shouldn’t your party congress on December 5th not approve the treaty?
The Social Democrats meet a day earlier, and it is up to a federal party congress to decide on the coalition for them too. This lowers the risk of rejection – unlike the government participations in 2013 and 2018, when all SPD members were questioned. This time only the Greens do this, who in 1998 and 2002 also presented the red-green coalition agreements to only one party congress.
This time, not only are all members allowed to vote, they should even have a say in the appointment of cabinet posts, which will be presented on this Thursday afternoon at a so-called Bund-Länder forum. There has never been anything like it in Germany. And the bang would probably be even bigger if the Greens rejected the traffic light coalition at the end. Presumably, that in turn has a disciplinary effect on the basis to say yes despite all the displeasure. A simple majority is enough.