Lisa Paus becomes family minister: good choice, bad crisis management

Lisa Paus has made a name for herself as a financial politician – and is also a good choice for the office of family minister. However, there were shortcomings in the Greens’ crisis management.

Lisa Paus is a good choice for the office of Minister for Family Affairs. She knows how the state can help families. As the financial policy spokeswoman for her parliamentary group, she knows the instruments for this: basic child security, child allowances, child benefit, spouse splitting, or even tax justice for single parents.

At first glance it may seem strange to appoint a proven finance politician to head the Department for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Only on closer inspection does it become apparent that family policy is a lot of financial policy. Because for many, the money from the state is necessary for family life. Compatibility of family and work – for many in Germany that means more than just achieving fulfillment in both. It often means balancing necessary work and family time. Lisa Paus has the necessary knowledge and skills here.

Experienced and successful

She also enjoys the necessary respect in the green parliamentary group, where she was elected vice-boss. In terms of leadership experience, you can green tick it. The same applies to winning elections, because she has been successful with the Berlin state party for years.

When asked about the crisis management of the Greens, however, there are shortcomings. Because Anne Spiegel should have received better advice and feedback from the party leadership before she resigned as Minister for Family Affairs. Someone should have coordinated with her internally, perhaps also to dissuade her from her television speech on the eve of her resignation. It did more harm than good.

The Greens are repeating their mistakes

The timing of the resignation seemed uncoordinated: shortly before that, the Chancellor had given her confidence. Only hours later, intentions to resign leaked out. And then it took a relatively long time for the Greens to take a position. The Greens are repeating their well-known mistakes from the election campaign: in the event of breakdowns and missteps, clear announcements would be needed instead of long rearguard action. And the party should have the courage to surround itself with critical advisors instead of just confidants who would rather swallow uncomfortable criticism than express it clearly.

The bottom line is not a completely bad impression. The Greens were at least able to organize the successor to the resigned minister within a few days. And they didn’t get tangled up in their proportional representation requirements. Namely that the successor should be female and belong to the left wing of the party. These are important messages to the electorate. Because a party that strives for government responsibility should also have enough capable people for prominent offices. And with Lisa Paus there is a woman at the start who is very promising.