Exploratory talks: How the FDP learns to love the traffic light

She actually always wanted a Jamaica coalition – now the FDP is sounding out with the parties it has warned against. The situation of the liberals in a traffic light alliance is anything but bad.

He has achieved his goal of preventing black and green. But again FDP leader Christian Lindner – after the failed Jamaica negotiations in 2017 – has to sound out a complicated three-party coalition. This time also as the party with the weakest election result of the three explorers. And then, of all things, with the parties that he had warned against before the election: with the SPD and the Greens who, in his view, would have slowed the country down or wanted to make politics through bans – and who also sought redistribution instead of that To strengthen economy.

In addition, the second FDP option for government participation in a mathematically possible black-green-yellow coalition is currently crumbling away due to the leadership crisis at the CDU / CSU. That shouldn’t really happen, because the FDP needs Jamaica as an option, at least in the hindquarters. That explains why they continue to confess to this alliance as a desired coalition, almost like a prayer wheel: Just don’t become too dependent on an Olaf Scholz or a Saskia Esken.

The nightmare scenario does not materialize

But Lindner is calm and optimistic – despite everything. The real nightmare scenario of the FDP did not materialize: SPD election winner Scholz could have negotiated the FDP on a small scale by always threatening a red-green-red alliance in the hindquarters during traffic light negotiations. But this alliance did not get a majority in the federal election. Instead, Scholz is dependent on the FDP – so the situation could really be worse.

Ultimately, the not-so-old FDP strategy of no longer being chained to the Union as a partner works. However, there is no sign of the resulting euphoria in the Genscher House. Of course there is now the concern of being ripped off by red-green. In this alliance you would be in a sandwich position – and disappointment among the voters actually programmed. But they don’t have to chain themselves to red-green either: a Jamaica coalition, as many FDP politicians emphasize in talks, is still a conceivable option – although now with a different leadership figure than Armin Laschet.

Greens and FDP: Both are needed

Since the election, Lindner has suddenly seen something that unites the Greens – especially in these weeks when the FDP and the Greens teamed up immediately after election evening to decide together in which round of three they should start exploring: “We are forming a progress-friendly center “, so Lindner in daily topics-Interview. The two larger parties, Union and SPD, would rather represent the status quo.

Interestingly, the Greens are going the same way, keeping the Union open as a partner and not yet offering too much to the SPD. In this new green-yellow alliance – recently called the citrus duo – the political scientist Karl-Rudolf Korte even sees a “new young bourgeoisie, a new middle”: The impulse is the new – you see a learning aspect in the parties, what they do more innovative, said Korte in an interview with tagesschau24.

It all sounds almost as if Lindner could even gain something from the situation. Whoever you speak to in the FDP these days: You can feel something like cautious confidence. Because in the political logic, the liberals are more of a foreign body in the red-green-yellow exploration, but the SPD and the Greens would have to accommodate them more in terms of content in order to win them. It was the other way around in the Jamaica negotiations in 2017: Here the FDP and the Union were programmatically closer, which led to the CDU / CSU rolling out the red carpet for the Greens.

FDP could make itself more expensive

In the case of traffic light explorations, the FDP even sees a greater chance of being able to drive the price higher than in Jamaica. SPD candidate for Chancellor Scholz is not only dependent on them in order to be able to govern – if one ignores the theoretical possibility of a renewed grand coalition. In terms of the election result, the SPD is in a much weaker position with 25.7 percent than the Union in 2017 in the Jamaica negotiations, when it still had 32.9 percent of the vote. In addition, according to the reading, the FDP could work out its own economically liberal profile within a traffic light more strongly than in a coalition with the CDU. However, there is also a political risk involved: If the FDP electorate were to become more dissatisfied in the course of a traffic light government, they could migrate to the Union.

More than the “lowest common denominator”?

Because in the case of a red-green-yellow government, it is to be expected that the CDU / CSU, as the largest opposition faction, would give a lot of opposition and could thus collect some dissatisfied. Obviously, the concern about this scenario is not too great. It must be clear, said FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing in the ARDthat the alliance will become more than the “lowest common denominator”. Neither should it be just a sum of intersections of all three party programs, nor an accumulation of thematic indentations in a first government declaration. “It should be a common agenda, of which people say that something is happening in the country – respect, how the parties have come together,” says Florian Toncar, the parliamentary director of the FDP in the Bundestag.

The Greens are also interested in joining forces with the FDP, Toncar said in an interview with tagesschau.de – so the two smaller ones could save themselves from being played off against each other by the stronger SPD. The FDP youth organization also supports the traffic light sounding: “We are optimistic that renewal in a government as a traffic light or Jamaica coalition is possible,” says Jens Teutrine of the Young Liberals. Incidentally, they are “humble, the trust that young and first-time voters have placed in us,” said the July chairman. In these age groups, the FDP and the Greens were voted the most.

Green-yellow as the “new young middle”, as a new project – Lindner and the economically liberal wing of the FDP certainly didn’t dream of that. Now it could become their political reality. It’s actually quite a different political world that he wakes up in every day. Perhaps Lindner has to change a little compared to the FDP politician, whom he represented before this federal election. But he could paint the potential partners a little more yellow.