Dhe federal government’s new controversial topic has been identified: budget planning for 2025. While the pension reform package is still being debated and the federal cabinet recently postponed the decision on it, the smallest of the three coalition partners, the FDP, presented a 5-point plan on Monday for the economy, which is already leading to disputes.
In the plan, the Liberals question spending on pensions, citizens’ money and development aid. At Sandra Maischberger, the two deputy parliamentary group leaders of their parties, Konstantin Kuhle (FDP) and Jens Spahn (CDU), argued about the ongoing dispute in the government and the economic situation.
The former “Bild” editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann and the journalists Anja Kohl (ARD stock market expert) and Sonja Zekri (“Süddeutsche Zeitung”) also discussed the poor economic situation and the federal government’s planned second pension package. In the second part of the show, the writer Salman Rushdie was a guest.
The state of the federal government is not important, said FDP politician Konstantin Kuhle when Maischberger began to ask him about the new dispute. Instead we should talk about the economic situation. Opposition politician Spahn countered directly: “Yes, that is quite important.” Instead of solutions, there are always arguments and different signals from the traffic light parties.
“We are now as unsafe as an investment location as the United Kingdom was shortly after Brexit,” complained Spahn. That has a lot to do with the constant bickering. “A turning point, an economic turnaround, a household turnaround. The best turnaround would be the end of the traffic light,” he rhymed.
Spahn said he sees great similarities between the Union and the FDP in the “things that Germany needs to become more attractive as a location.” But a 5-point plan is of little use if it does not lead to political consequences: “Nothing happens. There is no agreement on the traffic lights,” said the former Federal Minister of Health.
In their new paper, the Liberals are calling for the Abolition of the pension at 63. The SPD is strictly against it. When Maischberger asked why the demand appeared in the plan, Kuhle countered with a counter question: “Why is the Chancellor walking through the Republic today demanding a minimum wage of 15 euros, even though he knows that this cannot be implemented with the FDP? I want to tell you: Because they are different parties.”
Jens Spahn does not see the pressing problem as being the pension issue. Instead, it must be about economic growth. “Growth is the prerequisite for everything else,” he said. “That’s why we don’t need a debate about retirement at 63, but rather a debate about how we can get back to growth and make Germany attractive as a location.” He then stated to the FDP: “The topic has been missed.”
When it comes to irregular migration, Great Britain is already starting to allow the asylum procedure to take place in Rwanda. Jens Spahn “expressly wants” the Rwanda model, he said at Maischberger and spoke of a “safe third country”. However, he was critical of the new EU asylum rules adopted on Wednesday. “The European solution that was decided today is white salve. It doesn’t even apply to a third of those who come to us. It won’t solve the problem.”
You have to get rid of the message “If I somehow reach Europe, I can stay, no matter what happens next.” “There is no right to choose the destination country. But there is our duty as an international community to make protection possible. Rwanda is a country that would be willing to be a partner for this.”
“People will still come, regardless of whether Jens Spahn goes to Rwanda,” said Konstantin Kuhle aggressively. Instead, he referred to the stricter asylum rules that the EU Parliament had passed on the same day. According to this, there should, among other things, be uniform procedures at the external borders so that it can be quickly determined whether asylum applications are unfounded and refugees can then be deported more quickly and directly from the external border.
Then Jens Spahn had some advice for Kuhle. He insisted that the FDP should leave the government “immediately”. “This applies immediately,” said the CDU politician, following the famous words of Günter Schabowski, who announced the possibility of leaving the GDR in 1989.
The Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie was Maischberger’s guest of honor. He is currently visiting Germany and signed his name in the Golden Book of the city of Hamburg on Monday. He spoke to Maischberger about the knife attack by a suspected Islamist assassin in August 2022.
Since then, Rushdie has been blind in his right eye. In the studio he wore glasses with the right lens blackened. “When you come so close to death and then come back again, you have a much stronger awareness of the value of every single day in your life,” said the 76-year-old.
As early as 1989, the then Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for the author’s murder because of the novel “The Satanic Verses”. To this day, Rushdie said he doesn’t regret writing the book. “People never read the book,” he said of Khomeini and the protesters who took to the streets at the time and demanded his death. Rushdie said his only regret was that people used the book as an excuse to cause trouble.
He wrote his book “Knife – Thoughts after an Attempted Murder” about the assassination attempt. Last year Salman Rushdie was awarded the German Book Trade Peace Prize.