Sebastian Roloff has been vaccinated twice and has now also been boosted, but last week he was worried about a possible corona infection. The thought that he could get infected before the election and miss it made him nervous. Everything went well – and Roloff, SPD member of the Bundestag from Munich, was able to experience his chancellor moment on Wednesday.
To be on the safe side, he had taken an S-Bahn earlier than usual in the morning and was shortly after eight in the SPD parliamentary group hall, where at half past eight all MPs had to come to the “roll call”, as Roloff reports. First! A few hours later Olaf Scholz was elected, the fourth Social Democratic Chancellor in the history of the Federal Republic. For Roloff, “a great historical moment that you never forget in life”.
Jamila Schäfer had also been working towards this day for weeks and had been eager for it. Because the Wednesday of the election of the Chancellor brought a lot of joy for her party too, five ministers of the Greens were sworn in. “It was a very exciting week,” said the MP from the south of Munich, who personally won a direct mandate in Bavaria for the first time and was the first ever Greens. In the background you can already hear on the phone how she and her colleagues are being called to the next vote in the Bundestag.
“A German federal government could have come up with the idea a long time ago.”
But she can and wants to tell about the little piece of paper with which you can change the world, at least in Germany. Above was the name, Olaf Scholz, below the three options: yes, no and abstention. “I voted yes so that we can start right away,” says Schäfer. At that moment she found it almost “absurd” that these little pieces of paper decide who will rule the Federal Republic in the future. In the end, however, the joy “over the very special moment” prevailed.
First! On the day of the Chancellor election, Sebastian Roloff was in the SPD parliamentary group shortly after eight.
(Photo: private)
The SPD colleague Roloff had one again after the election. Then it went to the parliamentary group to congratulate. On the way there, the MP happened to end up in the same elevator as Karl Lauterbach, Hubertus Heil – and Olaf Scholz. He had taken it to the elevator several times, but Scholz was not yet Chancellor. Two ministers and the chancellor, that would of course have been a fantastic opportunity for the selfie fan Roloff. He is actually “painless”, admits Roloff, “but at some point it gets embarrassing”.
Incidentally, he was very well placed with his tips on the Cabinet. Even if the respective people now all have different tasks than he would have expected. There was even a prediction game among the employees: “One of my employees won a keg of beer.” Roloff is satisfied with the allocation of departments and the occupation of the SPD ministerial posts. He thinks it is “great” that half of them are women and half are men. “A German federal government could have come up with the idea a long time ago.”
Now he would like to finally get started with the content himself. He still doesn’t know which committees he’ll be on – he’ll have to be patient until Monday. Economics and law, these are the topics in which the lawyer would like to get involved. Jamila Schäfer is already through with the fear of whether the wishes for future work in the Bundestag will come true. The parliamentary groups determine which MEPs are allowed to work in which committee, so there must inevitably be disappointed people. Schäfer is not one of them, she ends the work week with a very happy personal Friday. She would like to be part of the Committee on Budgets and Europe, she said in the morning. A few hours later the message via cell phone after the parliamentary group’s decision: “Works.”
Resolutions for the budget committee: mix up and piss off
For the powerful budget committee, which distributes the money in politics, she has two things in mind: On the one hand, she wants to approach the work there “with a feminist view”. In other words: to stir up the body, which has so far been dominated by men, as a young woman. On the other hand, she wants to make as much money as possible there for the ecological-social turnaround, and for this she will be very happy to “pester” Finance Minister Christian Lindner from the perhaps not so agile FDP, she announced.
The past week also had something unpleasant in store for her colleague Roloff: It became known that the public prosecutor’s office is investigating him. As HR manager at MAN, he is said to have left his company car permanently to the then works council chairman. It is now being investigated whether this was allowed or not. Roloff does not comment on this due to contractual obligations.
Then there was also the problem with his Berlin apartment. After a Swedish furniture store put him off for weeks because of delivery problems, he has now canceled the order. The reason: a “personal needs issue”. It was clear that this could happen at some point, says Roloff – but he did not expect it to happen that quickly. So he’ll need a new apartment soon. But he doesn’t let his good mood spoil. A member of the Bundestag should still be quite privileged when looking for accommodation. And he is spared one thing: He doesn’t have to move any furniture – because he hasn’t had one yet.