Press
The traffic light coalition has agreed on a budget for 2025 – but the divisions are still deep. Scholz and Habeck are pathetic when announcing it.
Berlin – The dispute is over, the 205 budget is in place. Once again, the traffic light coalition has become entangled in a veritable marathon of negotiations. It was only shortly before 6 a.m. on Friday morning, according to reports, that a final agreement was reached. The budget also includes a growth package, with tax relief amounting to 23 billion euros to be introduced in 2025 and 2026.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), for example, celebrated the new plans as the “start of the economic turnaround”. Criticism is coming not only from the Union, such as Markus Söder, who saw the agreement as a “postponed knockout” for the traffic light coalition, but also from within the party’s own ranks. In any case, the SPD and FDP were less enthusiastic about Lindner’s “walling in” tactic on the budget. And the general conditions and the appearance at the press conference suggest that the negotiations were anything but easy.
Scholz, Lindner and Habeck announce the 2025 budget – Chancellor’s introduction amused
On Friday at 11 a.m., Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Economics Minister Robert Habeck appeared before the press together with Lindner. The short, probably sleepless night was clearly visible on the three heads of the government, and they made no secret of it at the press conference. “Sleep is overrated,” Scholz began his remarks on the budget. His joking explanation for why the agreement had to be reached on Friday morning was that they “absolutely” wanted to be ready before Germany’s European Championship quarter-final against Spain. In addition to the details and content of the agreement that followed, the presentation of the plans was also unusually personal and pathetic – on several occasions.
“We certainly didn’t make it easy for ourselves,” Scholz says, stating the obvious. Then he looks over at Habeck and especially Lindner: “After almost three years in this coalition, if I may say so here: We really don’t always make it easy for ourselves. We are wrangling hard for the issue and we are looking for compromises. Sometimes half the night, sometimes all night,” explains the Chancellor, “because the alternative is no alternative: losing your nerve, giving up or running away from responsibility.” As Chancellor, he has “no understanding of this, and the citizens certainly don’t.” Instead, Germany should be an “anchor of stability” in a shaky Europe – with this he is also alluding to the first results of the French election.
Budget question resolved – but not without dispute: Habeck and Scholz become pathetic about the 2025 budget
Habeck also struck a similar note at the end of his remarks. “When you sit together in the Chancellery and are bent over the papers, when you sometimes have to learn why the other person has a certain point of view, then the problem you are trying to solve – a gap of so many billion euros – seems to be the center of the world,” the Green minister also becomes pathetic. People often think, Habeck continues, that if “the other person continues to be so stubborn, then this won’t go any further” – an allusion to Lindner’s blockades beforehand? “I think we all three had that thought between us at some point,” he puts it into perspective.
The budget is “important for Germany, but it is not the centre of the world,” Habeck clarifies. While negotiations were taking place, there were still crises in the world. The realignment caused by the election in France is also presenting Europe with challenges, and the election campaign in the USA is also gaining momentum. “We therefore have a constant obligation not to exaggerate things carelessly,” instead the budget also wants to be a “place of reliability” in Europe. This must be kept in mind, “with all the reports about who is looking grim or where there has been a disagreement over half a billion here or there.”
Scholz and Habeck surprise with honesty – Lindner also mentions “sporty conversations”
And even Christian Lindner, who has already been criticized as the “waller” in the negotiations, picks up the thread right at the beginning of his remarks. They had “sporting talks” and the last few weeks had been “particularly intense”. This was also related to the external conditions. The “differences in assessment” within the coalition also played a role.
Pathetic, moralistic and indirectly a little personal: For this reason alone, the budget presentation stands out from the last joint appearances of the threesome on similar topics. While they had previously always appeared united, giving the impression that “we have not only pulled ourselves together, we are functioning”, the group now showed a new side. A more vulnerable, more fragile side, more concerned with showing that there are obviously frictions and difficulties between them. A pathos that is intended to convey that the rifts can be quite deep. But also that, with regard to Germany, there is something bigger than a dispute between top politicians – and that the result is what counts. (hans)
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