A new beginning for Germany?
On how our future government should behave, what it needs to do and what there is to learn.
Now that Olaf Scholz officially lost confidence it is time that we talk about our future government as just the absence of the unpopular Ampel (traffic light) Coalition (SPD, Greens & FDP) does not mean that everything in the future will be great again. Our future government will have the same issues to overcome - our economy, infrastructure, migration. Fundamentally it will need to find a solution to these topics a) inside the debt brake or b) needs to change the debt brake itself which stands in the constitution. The CDU wants to keep the debt brake and solve the financial issues otherwise, e.g. by cutting and reforming unemployment benefits. They also want to lower the income tax, corporate tax and VAT for the gastronomy. While lowering taxes is a good idea, it is just more than questionable how Friedrich Merz want to achieve that inside the debt brake while additionally investing even more than currently into our infrastructure (etc.). Nevertheless how it will be done, there is no time left and problems need to be cured in a way that our economy gets rolling again and people do not see their wealth endangered. Greens and SPD want to finance their investments into the country be reforming the debt brake itself and by increasing taxes for the (super-)rich.
How should a Government behave?
I think everybody agrees that nobody needs another government in which the participating parties are only interested in themselves instead of the country. Especially towards the end of the Ampel Coalition it just seemed like SPD, Greens and FDP were in election campaign mode. It didn’t matter which topic, all of them just tried to be “the winner”. This led to public discussions between the parties and ministers which should have been held privately. No wonder that no one liked the government anymore when it seemed like they could agree on a single thing. The future coalition needs to agree on a single thing again and that is to work for the future of our country. During the last government all of the parties went back into their ideology which, unsurprisingly, led to all these conflicts and then the early end of the coalition.
“This government could have succeeded, and indeed it should have”
- Volker Wissing, Minister of Traffic
While Merkel did look away from many key problems in Germany, there’s one thing I do appreciate about the Merkel-Era governments: They worked more or less together. Never have I ever experienced these public disputes by governing parties before the Scholz government. The governing parties appeared more focused on the country's wellbeing than their own interests. It isn’t like these times are over. More than enough state-level governments show that tricky coalitions can still constructively work towards a better future. I think it is a duty to German democracy that our future government behaves better. It’s about having respect towards the voters. We need the feeling that our government actually cares for us. I believe that once you are in a government you are primarily serving your country, not your party. That’s what made Minister of Traffic Volker Wissing stand out. He has always been public about how the government should work more constructively towards solutions instead of bashing each other publicly. After the FDP left the coalition, Wissing was the only liberal minister to stay within the coalition and he also left the FDP as a consequence. Publicly he said that “this government could have succeeded, and indeed it should have”. We need to break away from ideologies, i.e. holding on to the debt break at every cost or doing climate protection without looking at social consequences.
While the tasks are big I do still have optimism. I feel like all democratic parties know about the problems and also know about the possible consequences if the next government fails, i.e. a growing stronger of the AfD. Everybody saw what went well for the Ampel, but especially could everybody witness what did not go well. I hope, but also believe, that what ever government we are getting, it can only get better and that Germany will witness better times again.