FDP after budget verdict: The liberal brand core has been damaged

The traffic light partner FDP has clear red lines: no tax increases and the debt brake will not be touched. The budget ruling now puts the party under pressure – and hits it in an already difficult situation.

It should seem casual. The statement by FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner last Thursday only lasted one minute and nine seconds. There were no questions asked. “In consultation with the Federal Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor, I will present a supplementary budget for this year next week,” explained Lindner.

At this moment, the FDP finance minister announced in a somewhat cryptic manner what he absolutely wanted to prevent. The federal government now wants to declare an emergency for the fourth year in a row and suspend the debt brake. Contrary to all previous promises. The Karlsruhe budget ruling on the unconstitutional use of credit made this necessary, said Lindner. But the FDP’s core brand is now seriously damaged.

Members for leaving the traffic lights

Matthias Nölke is the FDP district chairman in Kassel. He had already started collecting signatures with party friends before the budget verdict. The goal: Party members should be asked nationwide whether the FDP should remain in the traffic coalition. The initiators recommend leaving. “In my view, the coalition was stillborn from the start,” says Nölke, who briefly sat in the Bundestag for the FDP. “The ideological hurdles between the three parties are actually far too big.”

The Karlsruhe verdict and Lindner’s announcement that he would again declare an emergency for the current year were very poorly received in the party, says Nölke. “There are also people who say that now that the verdict has been passed, they will submit their signature – even though they actually didn’t want to take part.” The hurdles for a non-binding member survey are very low in the FDP. It requires 500 valid signatures. The FDP has around 76,000 members. Nölke says he has collected around 700 signatures and is in contact with FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai. It is currently unclear when and how the signatures will be handed over.

Memories of black and yellow

Djir-Sarai is rather monosyllabic on the subject; he is unlikely to have any increased interest in large media coverage – unlike the initiators around Nölke. If 500 valid signatures are actually submitted, it must also be clarified how the necessary survey should proceed. Whether in the FDP offices or digitally. The following applies: the lower the hurdles, the higher the participation and the greater the attention in the end. “It is important to me that the processes necessary for this also take place in accordance with the statutes,” says Djir-Sarai.

The traffic light opponents around Nölke have so far had little weight in the FDP. But the nervousness in the party grows with every lost state election. Nationwide, the FDP is only at around five percent in the surveys. Memories are awakened of the black-yellow coalition with Angela Merkel, at the end of which the party was thrown out of the Bundestag ten years ago.

Frank Schaeffler is seen in the FDP parliamentary group as someone who regularly warns that the FDP could make too many compromises in the coalition with the SPD and the Greens. Schaeffler recently called the traffic light a millstone that was dragging the FDP further and further into the abyss. However, Schaeffler is not campaigning for a withdrawal from the traffic light, and most members don’t want that either, he believes. “There is of course a lot of anger about the work here in Berlin. But I believe that the members see that we have a responsibility,” said Schaeffler.

If the FDP were to leave the traffic light, the country would be more or less left alone in the difficult budget situation. “No FDP member can want that.”

Especially now?

Schaeffler and many others in the FDP emphasize that it is now crucial to look ahead. In other words: the 2024 federal budget, which is now being debated hard. The supplementary budget for 2023 should be ticked off quickly – according to the motto: It has been inevitable since the Karlsruhe decision. And in the end, new debts wouldn’t even be incurred – they would simply be recorded differently. But for 2024, even more must apply: no tax increases and no renewed suspension of the debt brake.

The FDP wants the Karlsruhe decision to be seen as a call to focus on a solid financial policy now. Both the party and parliamentary group leadership emphasize this. Because they know: The core brand of the FDP policy in the traffic lights is now being put to the test like never before. And Christian Lindner, who as finance minister and party leader has so far unchallenged power in the FDP, is in greater demand than ever. The one who has to find a solution to the budget crisis with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Economics Minister Robert Habeck. None of the three parties is as committed to financial policy as the FDP. Nobody has anything to lose on this issue.