Treetops right on the border: The Chancellor and the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia meet to inspect the wind turbines. Was that a historical walk?
Hendrik Wüst is four minutes early, Olaf Scholz six minutes late. After all, the Prime Minister and his bodyguards drive into the parking lot on Jagdhausstrasse in two black sedans, but the Chancellor has a convoy of four motorcycles, two sedans, two minibuses, plus a police car in front and behind. insignia of power. Wüst greets the 50 or so journalists in a friendly manner, but not Scholz.
What is this? A prime minister receives the federal chancellor. Something like that happens again and again. But on the outskirts of the municipality of Simmerath, near the Belgian border, two men who have more in common than their offices meet. More precisely: the more separates. They meet in the forest, leave their jackets in their cars, and soon they go to a clearing together – almost like you would imagine a duel to be.
The dislike is deep and mutual
The Chancellor and the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister have both not been in office for very long and have accumulated a lot of history in their relationship. Two men now greet each other with smiles on the dirt road who, in less than two years of their respective reigns, have spared no effort even to appear to like each other. But the big question is whether this duo also has an explosive future ahead of them, namely if Hendrik Wüst should become the Union’s candidate for chancellor.
Does the incumbent meet his challenger here? Possibly even the predecessor of his successor? Wüst and Scholz should suspect that this question will come up that day. But when?
Of course, there is also an official reason for the encounter in the forest of Simmerath. The two politicians culminate under the treetops to visit one of seven gigantic wind turbines, each almost 200 meters high, the rotor blades 112 meters in diameter. In the best case, they deliver almost 10 million kilowatt hours per year, which is enough to power 2,800 average households.
A CDU man who looks like a Green
With his ponytail hairstyle and his enthusiasm for the wind turbines in the forest, Bert Goffart, the mayor of Simmerath, looks like a green man from a picture book. But he is in the CDU and was last elected with 67 percent of the votes. This is also due to the fact that he apparently convincingly told the approximately 15,000 Simmerathern about the advantages of the wind turbines in the forest: the municipality takes in two million euros annually from land leases and trade tax – per taxable Simmerather that makes 120 euros. Because everyone benefits from it, the system is called a community wind farm. Simmerath should now be a role model.
Hendrik Wüst guides Olaf Scholz to the windmill. The lanky prime minister walks almost with a spring, the chancellor tends to traipse alongside, his hands in his pockets. A sign of disinterest? Not even close. Arriving at the wind turbine, Scholz pestered the head of the local public utility company about technical details. The wind turbine rotates leisurely overhead, and in bright sunshine it has just about reached the wind speed of three meters per second that is needed for the system to start up.
The size difference is obvious – at least physically
The journalists can hardly understand what exactly the chancellor wants to know. Among other things, it is apparently about approval procedures and the problem that the wind turbines are now of such proportions that they will soon no longer be able to be transported on roads and bridges. If you don’t hear anything as a reporter, you can at least see something – at least that a podium should be used in a possible television duel between Scholz and Wüst in 2025 so that the challenger does not tower too much over the incumbent. However, that would also be the case with Friedrich Merz or Markus Söder. The question of candidates in the Union is a trill of great men, now purely physically.
Hendrik Wüst, who had only been in office for six weeks as successor to Armin Laschet, congratulated Olaf Scholz on his election as Federal Chancellor in December 2021, only to regularly treat him with demands and criticism from then on. The CDU man likes to add the somewhat smug claim that the chancellor must now exercise his office, or something like that, to his speeches towards Berlin.
Scholz’s alleged criticism – and his denial
The first clinch in which both got caught was at the beginning of 2022 about compulsory vaccination. As chairman of the prime ministers’ conference, Wüst demanded a submission from the chancellor, Scholz saw it the other way around and snapped at his colleagues at the meeting accordingly. In a small circle, Scholz is said to have later described Wüst as an “amateur in a prime minister’s costume”. The chancellor later denied this, saying that the quote was in the press, “but not a comment from me.”
Nevertheless, one always had the impression afterwards that Scholz treated the Prime Minister in exactly the same way. Most recently in May, Wüst demanded a new regulation of refugee costs and more money from the federal government on all channels for days. In the following prime ministers’ conference, Scholz dismissed his colleagues, later listened with relish to Wüst gnashing his teeth in appreciation of the achievements from Berlin, and finally he was pleased in front of the press that the advice had been “so nice”. It was tantamount to humiliation.
In the meantime, the chancellor and prime minister have walked a few steps in the forest of Simmerath. The walk in the forest has great historical models, the most famous being the walk by NATO negotiator Paul H. Nitze and his Soviet colleague Julij Kwitzinskij on Lake Geneva in 1982. The two almost succeeded in ending the Cold War prematurely. But it lasted a few more years, just like the rivalry between Helmut Kohl and Franz-Josef Strauss, which didn’t end even after several hikes in the forests of Upper Bavaria.
The Prime Minister likes to choose the slightly too high tone
The starting position for the forest walk from Simmerath is not good either. Just four days before Scholz’s visit, the prime minister complained that the chancellor was breaking an election promise by refusing to introduce an industrial electricity price. Wüst warned against burying Germany as an industrial location and called it – once again in a somewhat exaggerated tone – the “first official duty of the chancellor” to counteract the exodus of companies.
But lo and behold: at least on this day, the gentlemen treat each other in a friendly manner. Wüst says his state government would like to do its part to achieve the Chancellor’s goal of building four to five wind turbines a day nationwide. With 178 approvals this year, North Rhine-Westphalia is on schedule for its share. Wüst explains his track record extensively, peppered with superlatives and top positions. Message: This is a professional speaking, not an amateur. And the chancellor, apparently in a giving mood, appreciates the increased efforts of the Düsseldorf state government. That was “not always the case in recent years”.
Scholz: I am many things, but not one thing…
And then it comes, the question that buzzed like a drone over the two politicians and their entourage all morning: whether Scholz met his challenger here in the next federal election? “I’m many things,” Scholz replies and laughs, “but not the press spokesman for the CDU.” Things couldn’t have gone better for Wüst. It’s enough for him to remain in the conversation as a candidate. Friedrich Merz takes care of the rest, one way or another.
To say goodbye, Scholz even does his colleague a favor. Before leaving for the next appointment, the chancellor asks the prime minister to stand aside and engages him in a minute-long whispering. The press is kept at a distance, but is allowed to take photographs from a distance. It’s almost the ultimate staging of politics: two important men have something to discuss. Shouldn’t anyone say they can’t get along – the Waldfriede von Simmerath.