Podcast “important today”
Unloved coalition partner: The FDP on the brakes
FDP boss and stimulus figure: Christian Lindner.
© Michael Kappeler / DPA
The FDP: blockers instead of designers? “FDP policy is increasingly becoming a hodgepodge of the impossible,” says stern editor Benedikt Becker, who is putting the party to the test shortly before the state elections in Lower Saxony.
“I’ve been reporting on the FDP for four years now and you can at least say that it never gets boring with the FDP,” says Benedikt Becker in the 376th episode “important today”. The editor reports for star and “Capital” from the Capital Office.
The FDP as a disruptive factor in traffic lights
‘In this crisis-ridden time, not so much is left of the promised departure of the traffic lights – and the FDP is considered by the public to be the brake on this departure. An impression that Benedikt Becker can confirm: “The feeling that many in Germany are getting is that the FDP is the disruptive factor in this government, that it is slowing down the many things that the Greens and the SPD are planning.” The fact that this impression is created is also due to the communication at the top, says the editor in the podcast. “There is no communication of ‘we have achieved a lot’, but ‘we have prevented a lot’.” However, it is questionable whether one can keep people on board for an entire legislative period solely with this slogan that it would be much worse without the FDP.
And last but not least, since the ongoing dispute between Habeck and Lindner over the gas levy, many liberals have been dreaming of leaving the coalition. Only the question of “What then?” remains unanswered. Christian Lindner stands between all of this as party chairman and finance minister. “Lindner is an attractive figure for many,” says Benedikt Becker. And precisely because Lindner never actually wanted the traffic light coalition, it is now very difficult “in this government to manage the balancing act between one’s own positions, which one does not want to vacate just now, and the compromises that one has found and that one also does want to sell in such a way that you have your share of it”. At the same time, Lindner is still a figurehead of the party: “Under Christian Lindner, the FDP has grown a lot in recent years.” And 60 percent of the people who are members of the FDP today didn’t even experience the time when the party was kicked out of the Bundestag, says Benedikt Becker.
decision in Hanover
But now the state elections in Lower Saxony are just around the corner. Elections will take place on Sunday, and according to current polls, the FDP is just prance- ing around the five percent hurdle there. If she flies out of the state parliament, the pressure would increase even more than it already does, says Benedikt Becker. “It would be bitter for the FDP because it would be the fourth state election that doesn’t go the way you imagine.”
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