parties
SPD warns FDP before party conference: No doubt about coalition
“Disputable in Europe”: The FDP party conference around Lindner (lr), Strack-Zimmermann and Djir-Sarai could cause trouble in the traffic light coalition. photo
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
The weakening FDP wants to sharpen its profile at a party conference. Is she heading towards an end to the traffic light coalition? The coalition partners warn not to overdo it.
She added: “We still have a lot of plans to do together. And despite all the differences, we shouldn’t forget that a lot of things will be decided and implemented without any arguments.” The SPD leader referred to the founding idea of the traffic light alliance: “We formed this coalition with a lot of courage – and also out of state political responsibility. The idea was that very different partners could advance the country precisely by putting their different ideas together .”
What the FDP plans to do at the party conference
The FDP will determine its further goals in the government coalition with the SPD and the Greens at a party conference in Berlin this weekend. A key motion reiterates the call for an “economic turnaround” in Germany and priority for growth. “Our country is currently not competitive,” it says. “The economy is stagnating like no other industrial country. Excessive bureaucracy, high energy prices, high levels of taxes and duties as well as an acute shortage of skilled workers are significantly slowing down the German economy.”
At the same time, “an oversized social budget puts a strain on the financial resources of the state and society.” With proposals to stimulate the economy through tax relief and tightening social benefits, the FDP had already alienated the SPD in particular before the delegates’ meeting – and fueled speculation as to whether the coalition would hold out because of the very different positions of the SPD, Greens and FDP.
What’s planned today
Today the FDP chairman and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner will give his party an annual report and set the tone. In the afternoon, the FDP’s top candidate for the European elections, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, will speak. Numerous proposals are expected to be passed by Sunday.
What could still boil up
At the party conference, vice-chairman Johannes Vogel wants to fuel another smoldering coalition fire: by calling for a revision of the pension package, with which the government wants to introduce a share pension and keep the pension level stable. The coalition agreement stipulates that the so-called holding line for pension levels “must be secured across generations,” he explained. “I am therefore requesting that we demand corrections at the party conference.”
Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) presented the so-called pension package II at the beginning of March. Vogel would like to push the planned development of a capital stock on the stock market towards a real stock pension based on the Swedish model. He also questioned the so-called pension at 63. He had already put forward his proposal at the end of March and received criticism from the SPD.
On the “web.de” portal, Vogel justified the sometimes heated arguments between the coalition partners. In the future, parties with very different positions will have to form coalitions more often, he said. Under such conditions it is unrealistic for “debates to take place behind the scenes alone”. “We are dealing here with a change in our political culture.”