Traffic light coalition: an alliance that exudes drive and departure – opinion

What a difference: Whenever the Union and the SPD presented their respective coalitions, you could basically tell by all of their representatives why they were doing it – out of a sense of duty. When the five chairmen of the SPD, Greens and FDP as well as the SPD candidate for chancellor appeared in front of the press on Friday, they radiated: joy, departure, a sense of community. Should Germany really get a coalition that not only manages the country but also wants to advance it, that sees itself as a project and not just as a compromise processing machine? Christian Lindner had always explained in the election campaign that he lacks the imagination of how his FDP wanted to come together with the SPD and the Greens. What two weeks of confidential meetings cannot change.

Those three parties that emerged victorious from the federal elections have decided to form a coalition; they were all able to improve their results compared to 2017. They may be three parties “with different traditions and different points of view,” as it says in their paper at the end of the explorations. But the reason for their victory was always the same: They radiated energy. This was the main difference to the CDU and CSU, who were punished for relying for many years on that single item on the program (Angela Merkel) that they no longer had. “It can’t stay the way it is” – another FDP sentence from the election campaign, which also expressed the social democrats ‘and the Greens’ political attitude towards life.

It cannot stay the way it is. But how should it be?

What now remains to be clarified in the coalition negotiations and then again and again in the coalition is the question: How should it be? There is hope that the appearance of the six and their paper reveals a lot of pragmatism – which is essential for success in addition to the fact that you can be human with one another. If, for example, everyone wants the same thing when it comes to climate protection, it is easier to look for ways together than if there is already disagreement about the goal. Green rigor in the expansion of wind and solar power as well as free democratic furor in the reduction of bureaucracy do not have to be opposites. Rather, one helps the other.

When does it start? “Before Christmas”, Olaf Scholz said it again on Friday. Measured against the formation of the coalition in 2017, that would be incredibly fast, at that time it took half a year to get black and red. Measured by democratic self-evident facts, the date is absurd: the new Bundestag meets on October 26th, the members of parliament elect a presidium, but afterwards they have to be inactive for months – for example, the SPD environment minister despite an expired mandate at the UN Climate conference in Glasgow will negotiate.

In several federal states, the authors of the state constitution have recognized that something like this is actually not possible. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the election winner Manuela Schwesig only has until November 23 to form a government; if she fails by then, the state parliament could be dissolved. And in Bavaria the state constitution is even more rigorous. Article 44 stipulates: “The Prime Minister is elected by the newly elected state parliament at the latest within one week after its meeting.” Otherwise the state parliament is dissolved. Not everything that comes from Bavaria is bad.

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