The polls of the SPD are in the basement. Now the Social Democrats want to use their economic policy to free themselves from the low mood. But that could lead to more conflicts.
A supposed lion in Berlin and a kangaroo in Brandenburg. Rarely has it been possible to draw so much attention to summer slump topics in recent years. This is also due to the fact that the representatives of the traffic light coalition had decided to rest over the summer. The coalition’s own horror at the dispute over the so-called heating law was too great.
But the calm could be deceiving. The traffic light is facing new major conflicts. This time it’s about economic policy. Again, the FDP and the Greens in particular are irreconcilable. At the latest since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) certified Germany as the only large industrialized country to have negative economic growth, the conflict has also been running high in public.
The SPD is somewhere in the middle
The SPD, Greens and FDP still agree on the diagnosis. But the proposed solutions are different. The Greens want an investment package worth 30 billion euros, the FDP prefers tax cuts for companies. And the SPD? It’s somewhere in the middle and is coming under increasing pressure from poor poll numbers.
In the federal election, the party had won 25.7 percent and had thus become the strongest force. The Social Democrats are now the biggest losers among the traffic light parties. In the current ARDGermanyTrend the SPD is only 17 percent for the Sunday question. That’s only enough for third place behind Union and AfD.
conference on the topic economic policy
The party has recognized that it must therefore deliver on the subject of the economy. At the end of August, the parliamentary group will meet for a retreat in Wiesbaden. There the party wants to decide on a paper on economic policy. This is being written behind the scenes. In the group, the former start-up entrepreneur Verena Hubertz is responsible for economics.
Dem ARD Capital Studio She says that you don’t need quick fixes, but an active economic policy to tackle the encrusted structures: “That means long-term investments in future industries, tax incentives for investments, less bureaucracy and urgently a bridge price for electricity.”
electricity price discounts – Yes or no?
There are different names for this instrument in the party. In addition to bridge electricity price, the term transformation electricity price or simply industrial electricity price also appears. All three terms mean the same thing: state-financed electricity price discounts for industrial companies.
The instrument is popular in the party. Among others, the Prime Ministers Anke Rehlinger (Saarland) and Stephan Weil (Lower Saxony) are calling for the introduction. The parliamentary group will also make the industrial electricity price a central demand in the coming weeks. The only problem. The Chancellor is not convinced. And the FDP is strictly against it. Only the green coalition partner is also in favor of the price discount.
Hubertz is nevertheless optimistic that the industrial electricity price will come at the end. In an interview with the Deutschlandfunk she says that things have already been implemented together, “other people were also strictly against something”. As an example, the SPD MP cites the electricity and gas price brake.
There is agreement on some points
The question could result in a conflict between the chancellor and the parliamentary group. But the SPD does not want to introduce instruments everywhere that the FDP and the chancellor reject. The SPD expressly welcomes tax incentives for companies. And the party also likes the investment bonus from Christian Lindner’s so-called Growth Opportunities Act.
There are also demands for a bureaucracy reduction law. FDP Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann is already working on this. Key points could already be decided at the upcoming cabinet meeting.
Who is entitled to the money from CO2 pricing?
When it comes to investments, the SPD is closer to the Greens. It is clear that things also have to be funded by the state. Whenever companies take money into their own hands, for investments in future technologies or climate-friendly transformation processes.
The difference to the Greens: The SPD is convinced that it does not need an additional 30 billion euros for the time being. Hubertz says there is enough money in the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF). Deutschlandfunk. The disadvantage: the income from CO2 pricing is currently flowing into the KTF. This means that the money is no longer available for direct social compensation.
Actually, the income from CO2 pricing should be returned to the citizens as so-called climate money. The traffic light parties had agreed in the coalition agreement. However, a mechanism for this has yet to be developed. As long as this does not exist, there will also be no social compensation, although the CO2 price is expected to continue to rise.
The global corporation Intel, among others, will benefit from the money. The company will receive around ten billion euros in subsidies from the climate and transformation fund for a new chip factory in Magdeburg. Economic policy can hardly be separated from financial policy.
SPD “network” calls for reform of inheritance tax
The Berlin network, the third current in the parliamentary group alongside party leftists and more conservative Seeheimers, has also just written a paper that ARD Capital Studio present.
In it, the MPs call for a reform of the inheritance tax, among other things. The paper says they want a “truly progressive inheritance tax, with larger inheritances taxed at a higher rate than smaller taxable inheritances and gifts.” A classic social-democratic demand, which, however, hardly seems feasible in the traffic light coalition.
In addition, the networkers, who say they have around 50 MPs, are putting old debt regulations for over-indebted municipalities back on the agenda. In view of the urgency of the problem, a solution is needed by the end of the year that will ensure “that personal contributions are made to debt relief, that such over-indebtedness is prevented again in the future and at the same time that investment power is strengthened”.
The second half of the legislative period begins in September with the first week of sessions in the Bundestag after the summer break. There are then two years until the next federal election. It could be that the SPD will speak up more often in the future.
The first shows the summer interview with SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken on Sunday from 2 p.m. on tagesschau24 and from 6 p.m. in the report from Berlin.