Christian Lindner is available in two versions this Sunday in the old Postbahnhof on Luckenwalder Strasse in Berlin. The first comes to the lectern around noon and says, measured in tone: “Everyone had hoped and with the availability of vaccines also expected that this winter would be different from last year.” The pandemic, however, has not been overcome, and these realities have to be dealt with.
On the one hand, the FDP does this by holding its party conference digitally. Only the presidium is on site, the 662 delegates who are supposed to vote on the 178-page coalition agreement of the traffic light are at home at their screens. Above all, Lindner wants to do justice to the pandemic realities by giving the government politician he wants to become this week. Minister not of the FDP and also not of the traffic light, but “the Federal Republic of Germany”.
77 percent of the FDP supporters are for compulsory vaccination – that gives Lindner food for thought
Lindner is therefore in the statesman version of himself at the lectern and says that the hope of another pandemic winter has not been confirmed, which is why the FDP leadership is now in favor of mandatory vaccination in old people’s and nursing homes. The Liberals have also given up their opposition to compulsory vaccination. In the Bundestag, the members of the Bundestag should vote on it without being forced into a parliamentary group. It made him “thoughtful” that, in surveys, 77 percent of the FDP supporters are in favor of compulsory vaccination – six percentage points more than in the general population.
According to Lindner, the interaction between the executive federal government and traffic light parties has produced “appropriate results” in combating the increasing number of infections. However, the image of the “state community of responsibility” had been “unsatisfactory” in the past few weeks. “I recommend not repeating it,” says Lindner, and that’s what it sounds like, self-criticism à la FDP. However, Lindner does not want to see a “turnaround” among the Free Democrats: After all, there will be no nationwide lockdown, no area-wide closings of retail stores or schools.
For the second part, Lindner unpacks the top campaigner again
At this point the conference presidium thanks the party leader for the speech, which turns out to be premature. Because the actual party conference speech is yet to come, with which the second Christian Lindner makes his appearance: the party leader and top election campaigner. He has “a few more comments to make,” he says, and steps in the middle of the stage, in front of the desk. What follows is a passionate plea for the traffic light alliance, for the coalition agreement, for governance with the SPD and the Greens.
“We will shape the government,” promises Lindner. “But let’s also allow government to shape us as a party.” Lindner praises the renewal of the promise of advancement of the social market economy, which the traffic light agreed. They wanted to counter challenges such as climate change by “unleashing creativity and private capital”. There are a lot of liberal ideas to be found again, says Lindner: super write-offs, acceleration of approval procedures, the change to a socio-ecological market economy that reconciles economic and ecological requirements.
Lindner speaks free, only in minute 47 does he briefly look at his cheat sheet. He bobs, bounces and gestures – in front of an empty hall, but also non-verbally he wants to leave no doubt about how convinced he is of this project. The traffic light put an end to the “life lie” that Germany is not a country of immigration, but at the same time wants to limit irregular migration. And with the digitization of the state and society, she wants to contribute to the fact that in future one no longer has to “drive the car to online shopping”. And of course, the finance minister-designate also speaks: the debt brake. The party stood firm and fended off all desires.
How often people talk about “freedom” on Sunday can hardly be counted. Marco Buschmann, the future Minister of Justice, will give a pronounced freedom speech. The political guiding value of the FDP is, of course, “freedom”. And with this, the coalition agreement is now also being measured, with what Buschmann finds acceptable results. As examples, he cites the socio-political projects of the traffic light, from the new “community of responsibility”, for which people can choose even in non-marital constellations, to non-discriminatory access to reproductive medicine. Liberalism is namely “nothing cool”, but there to make the “innermost desires” of the people more likely.
“Freedom,” says the future Justice Minister Buschmann, is “an idea that is not set in stone”
At the same time, Buschmann is flexible in terms of freedom; the pandemic has already taught the FDP that it may be necessary to cut back on immovable original positions faster than a future Minister of Justice can say “prerogatives of assessment”. “Freedom”, says Buschmann, is also the freedom of future generations and beyond that “an idea that is not set in stone”. Rather, it must always be balanced with responsibility. Generally the balance. Buschmann speaks of the right balance between the freedom of the individual and the responsibility for society as a whole. That is, and at this point it becomes advent, “the sacred duty” of the liberals and in the result of the coalition agreement can be felt.
Bettina Stark-Watzinger, soon to be Minister of Education, and Volker Wissing, soon to be Minister of Transport, tend to stick to the issues that they will soon have to deal with. Stark-Watzinger promises easier cash flows from the federal government to schools. Wissing, who will soon be responsible for part of the state hardware – rails, roads, bridges, cell phone masts – reminds us that investments in a market economy should not be a purely state task.
And the delegates? Votes in the end with 92.24 percent for the coalition agreement.