The parties’ explorers: mediators, hardliners, tacticians

The Greens with the FDP, the SPD with the Greens and FDP, the Union with the FDP: Everywhere will soon be explored. Sure, the party leaders are there – but who else? And why? An overview.

They are a first and important step – and yet there is still a long way to go before a possible government alliance can be reached. In exploratory talks, the parties reveal their initial wishes and expectations for a future coalition. Where are the red lines, what would you wear and what not. It’s about content, about rapprochement and above all: about trust. Sometimes there is already a post.

The teams that the parties put together to do this are often critical to success. Not only negotiating skills and experience are required – often enough it is also about the personalities. And the question: who can ultimately best explain these agreements to the grassroots?

The SPD

The SPD wants to go into talks with the Greens and the FDP with a six-person exploratory team.

The SPD team is led by Olaf Scholz. At least since the election victory – his election victory – his authority is undisputed. Scholz is considered a clever negotiator, tough on the matter, but fair. He was already involved in numerous coalition talks both in Hamburg and in the federal government. These traffic light talks are unlikely to fail because of Scholz, a risk for him comes more from the party left, who are likely to suspect excessive concessions to the Lindner FDP.

That is one of the reasons why the party leaders play Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken played an important role in the explorations. They represent the party and in particular the party left, so Scholz also needs them as a mediator internally. It is still unclear whether the SPD will decide on the coalition agreement again by membership decision, but without the basis behind it, no stable three-party alliance will come about – and Scholz will not enter the Chancellery.

Secretary General Lars Klingbeil is there, who has not only managed the SPD’s election campaign in the past few months, but is also to be largely responsible for the new unity of the comrades. Lower Saxony is said to have good connections in all directions.

An important link is also Ralph Mützenich, the newly elected head of the Bundestag parliamentary group with a dream result. Mützenich represents the interests of a very large, colorful parliamentary group with 206 members, many newcomers are there, many Jusos, including Kevin Kühnert. Scholz trusts Mützenich, who reunited the parliamentary group after Nahles’ resignation and thus demonstrated his integrative skills. Mützenich enjoys a lot of authority and respect from the MPs.

There is also an important role Malu Dreyer to. The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate already demonstrated in 2016 how successful talks about a traffic light alliance go. And it shows how such a three-party government can work in a stable manner – so successfully that all three partners continued this cooperation after the election in the spring. That probably has a lot to do with Dreyer’s moderating style of government, which gives all partners space and creates a basis of trust. At the same time, Dreyer enjoys a very high reputation within the SPD.

The green

The Greens want to go into talks about the formation of a government with a ten-person exploratory team. Some of them were already at the 2017 Jamaica talks. The party leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck for example – at that time still in other functions. You will probably be the central negotiator this time. Habeck should bring positive experiences from the Jamaica coalition in Schleswig-Holstein.

The parliamentary group leaders in the Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Anton Hofreiter, are also part of it again. Göring-Eckardt is one of the most experienced Green politicians, she was already the top candidate in the 2017 and 2013 elections. The parliamentary group manager is also on the list Britta Hasselmann, the previous Vice President of the Bundestag Claudia Roth, the European Parliamentarian Sven Giegold and the deputy party chairman Ricarda Lang. Party executive Michael Kellner will negotiate as well.

Also there: the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann. He is ruling with the CDU for the second time, although a traffic light alliance would also have been possible in Baden-Württemberg. Kretschmann represents more conservative positions and is often offensive within the party. In the CDU negotiating team, he meets Thomas Strobl, with whom he negotiated the coalition agreement in Stuttgart.

There was then prompt criticism of the composition of the Greens team. “The handpicked troop is as diverse as white sausage,” etched the “tageszeitung”. Not a person with a migration history was there.

Göring-Eckardt explained this with the “structures” and recognized the “need for action”. However, there should be a closer and a broader team, said a spokeswoman. “Due to its size, the 24-person team represents the breadth of the party in a more differentiated manner than the smaller team.”

The FDP

Ten politicians are said to belong to the FDP team. But the focus will probably be on one thing above all: Christian Lindner. The party leader goes into negotiations with the experience of the failed Jamaica talks in 2017. Before the general election, he spoke out clearly several times in favor of a coalition with the CDU under a Chancellor Laschet. With Laschet in North Rhine-Westphalia, he worked out a coalition in 2017 that continues to this day.

However, the Secretary General also plays a decisive role Volker Wissing to play. With the FDP in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2016, he showed how a traffic light coalition can be successfully negotiated. Since then, the alliance has been working together in the state with little conflict, now in its second edition. The fact that he is part of the preliminary quartet with the Greens shows what central role he is likely to assume in the talks.

A strong man from the FDP will be missing, at least in the first few talks. Wolfgang Kubicki is not included for health reasons. He was one of the defining figures of the ultimately failed Jamaica talks in 2017 in the federal government – and in the past has not hidden that he favored this alliance this time. In Schleswig-Holstein he worked successfully with Habeck in this constellation.

However: Most recently he made it clear that he can hardly imagine that at least with a Laschet CDU in its current state. For this he did not save with praise for Greens explorer Habeck. “With him you can come up with solutions that no one has thought of before,” he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “If Robert Habeck leads the green negotiating delegation, I am almost certain that the results can be sensible.”

Also the deputy federal chairmen Nicola Beer and Johannes Vogel will take part in the exploratory talks. Vogel is considered extremely ambitious, initiates strategy debates and, in tandem with Konstantin Kuhle, has also opened the party to left-wing liberal voters. He should therefore also be receptive to a traffic light coalition. Beer was part of the exploratory team as Secretary General in 2017. It could cause worry lines in some green people. Statements on climate change have sparked discussions in the past.

One of the probers is of course again this time Marco Buschmann, parliamentary manager. He is considered to be strategically versed and a confidante of Lindner. The two have known each other since that time with the Young Liberals. Saxony-Anhalt’s FDP parliamentary group leader Lydia Hüskens, which recently negotiated the coalition agreement between the CDU, SPD and FDP in the state, is also there.

As an advocate of a traffic light is actually Baden-Württemberg FDP boss Michael Theurer. Theurer campaigned for a traffic light coalition long and energetically, but in the end in vain. At the end of August, however, Theurer was much more skeptical when asked about a traffic light at the federal level. “The mood in the FDP is such that a traffic light would not be easy, if not too big a risk,” he told the dpa at the time.

Next in the team: the parliamentary managing director of the FDP parliamentary group Bettina Stark-Watzinger, the former social democrat and today’s FDP treasurer Harald Christ and the EU parliamentarian Moritz Körner.

The Union

The CDU comes as a team of ten. It is formed around her hapless candidate for chancellor and CDU boss Armin Laschet. Also Secretary General Paul Ziemiak is there and the parliamentary group leader, who was initially re-elected for six months Ralph Brinkhaus.

The prime ministers take from the countries Volker Bouffier (Hesse), Daniel Günther (Schleswig-Holstein) and Pure Haseloff (Saxony-Anhalt). Haseloff was the only one in this group of those who had pleaded for CSU boss Markus Söder as candidate for chancellor. In Saxony-Anhalt he has just formed a coalition with the SPD and FDP. Günther from Kiel should also be able to provide interesting input: In Schleswig-Holstein he has been leading a Jamaica alliance with the Greens and the FDP since 2017. Habeck was also present in the talks in Kiel. And Bouffier has been ruling Hesse silently with the Greens since 2014.

The CDU delegation also includes the vice-party leaders Thomas Strobl, Julia Kloeckner, Silvia Breher as Jens Spahn at. Above all, Spahn recently campaigned for a renewal of the CDU. The “generation after Angela Merkel” must take greater responsibility. CDU Vice Spahn is also attributed his own ambitions for leadership positions.

The CSU sends five people to the talks. Party leader Markus Söder comes with Secretary General Markus Blume, Party vice Dorothee Bear and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt. In addition, the parliamentary managing director of the regional group is Stefan Müller, represent. The CSU around Söder had recently drawn attention to itself with verbal swipes against Laschet.

There has been a lot of rumor in the Union since the election defeat. With a view to the upcoming explorations, the CSU apparently mocked the CDU’s “giant exploratory team”, reports the dpa news agency with a view to the troops of ten. There had also been disagreements with the appointment.