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Fried – view from Berlin
Olaf Scholz gives his third New Year’s speech – stern has a first draft
In his last New Year’s speech, Olaf Scholz called for confidence. It wasn’t that easy this year.
© ddp/action press
Turn of the year with Olaf Scholz: The Chancellor gives his third New Year’s address on television. This time he has planned something special.
“Dear fellow citizens, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Unfortunately, shortly before the holidays, I was hit by the coronavirus for the second time. That was clearly not a surprise that I was happy about. That’s why I went to my official residence withdrawn in the Chancellery. My wife was worried that she would have to go on our planned holiday trip over the holidays without me. But I defeated the virus very, very quickly. When I got home in time for our departure, I said to my wife: You’ll never walk alone.
Now you probably want to know what will happen next in 2024. Thank you very much for the question. I sat together with Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner for 200 hours to draw up a new budget. 200 hours, that’s longer than I can go on vacation because I have to be back in Berlin before New Year’s Eve to record this New Year’s speech. Keep your eyes open when choosing a career. (Giggle here).
But one thing is clear: it has become a very, very good household. I don’t want to use too many words, but I do want to say that I believe that this is a very historic moment that we find ourselves at.
Such negotiations are of course very strenuous. Our Finance Minister Christian Lindner was exhausted early in the morning and called home early because he was sick. But that wasn’t so bad, we let the state secretaries continue the calculations, and my head of the chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt, wrote up a paper with the savings, which we were able to publish just six days later. I think it’s a very, very good paper.
When the Finance Minister was away, I showed Robert Habeck a little bit of the Chancellery: the kitchen where Angela Merkel peeled the vegetables for her potato soup and the humidor in which Gerhard Schröder smuggled currywurst into the house. Robert wanted to know everything in detail: whether I was calling Vladimir Putin on my cell phone or on the landline, how Emmanuel Macron liked the fish sandwich in Hamburg and whether Joe Biden had ever fallen asleep on the phone. That was fun. I like it when someone is so interested in my work.
Dear fellow citizens, what awaits us in the new year? Thank you for the question. We will try to comply with the debt brake. That’s why we’re not deciding on any extraordinary emergency situation for the budget that would allow us to borrow more. However, we are maintaining the traffic light emergency situation. Firstly, it can no longer be called unusual; it is part of this coalition’s inventory. Secondly, it doesn’t cost any money, just nerves. And thirdly, we don’t have to fear a lawsuit from the Union in Karlsruhe against this emergency, as it lives from it politically.
Let’s look forward to the new year with confidence! Personally, I’m particularly looking forward to the German team’s early elimination from the European Football Championship because then I won’t have to go to the stadium as often, which I don’t enjoy anyway. Happy New Year!”