Restart of the Greens and the traffic lights

“New start for the Greens – finale for the traffic lights” was the title Caren Miosga titled her evening talk show on Erste and invited representatives of the coalition to do so. The head of the parliamentary office of the “Rheinische Post” raised some question marks in view of the three politicians’ slogans for perseverance.

“Of course we made mistakes, if we hadn’t made any mistakes we wouldn’t be where we are now,” said the outgoing Green Party leader Omid Nouripour when Caren Miosga initially questioned him alone on Das Erste that evening. “There is a lot of stupid stuff about the Greens: everything we supposedly want to ban, from meat to driving,” he says, looking for reasons for poor election results. “And we may not have resisted it robustly enough, quickly enough and hard enough.” The “core job” of him and Ricarda Lang is “that we are successful in elections”. That didn’t work anymore and she would have taken responsibility for that.

“In the end, it is crucial that we as a party get out of this and that the restart somehow succeeds,” says Nouripour. The Green Party confirms that his relationship of trust with Robert Habeck remains intact. He is also “deeply convinced that Robert Habeck is the right person,” including for the next election campaign. When Miosga provoked him with a possible “Robert Habeck alliance”, he defended himself: he was not afraid of any “ego shows”.

But Miosga only wants to talk a little about the Greens and more about the traffic light coalition. Nouripour believes the government has already “achieved a lot”. But it is also part of honesty to say “that we will no longer be a super-harmonious coalition,” he admits. The next government must “deal with itself differently.”

Kerstin Münstermann, head of the parliamentary office of the “Rheinische Post”, is wondering how the next twelve months until the federal election will go. FDP party leader Christian Lindner actually created a threatening backdrop with his slogan about the “autumn of decision”. The Greens, meanwhile, were talking about a “transition” and Lauterbach was one of the few in the SPD who would protect “the first man” in times of crisis. They are not so sure whether this “autumn of decision” will lead to a “winter of rigidity or still a spring.”

The three politicians try to use as few shrill tones as possible, but Caren Miosga is not yet satisfied with the FDP’s stance and asks why the Greens would resign but Christian Lindner is never actually questioned in his job. Since May 2022, she calculates that the party has only suffered losses in state and European elections, and in the east the FDP has been “virtually pulverized”. He has been party chairman since 2013, as long as Pope Francis has headed the Catholic Church, she compares and asks: “Why has Christian Lindner actually been the Holy Father of the FDP for years?”
Christian Dürr is dismissive and does not want to have a personal conversation. According to him, his party is “at peace with itself” and did reasonably well in the European elections. “It’s clear that the results in East Germany annoy me,” he admits.

His slogan: Germany is facing major challenges and “doing nothing is not an option.” The economy and order in migration are the topics of the fall. “We have to do this together, because many before us couldn’t do it.”

Previously, the FDP politician had not really managed to explain why traffic light agreements were repeatedly questioned or criticized a short time later by an FDP member, as was the case with Pension Package II. Nouripour describes this situation like this: “We get something done together, but a day later we talk it out again in the open.” That’s the problem. “The substance is right, but the method of communication ruins it.”

Lauterbach agreed that there were “always individual voices” being raised, but then appeared conciliatory and praised successes: “For example, we have gotten a better handle on the migration issue; the number of irregular migrants has fallen,” said the Federal Health Minister. At the same time, the Skilled Immigration Act is also taking effect and the number of nursing staff has increased by 50 percent within a year.

Lauterbach wants to leave as little space as possible on the topic of internal coalition disputes on ARD in the evening and instead prefers to announce the “four big decisions for the fall”. Since there shouldn’t be any “magic,” he says and prescribes optimism: “I think we’ll have some in the budget, migration, pensions and health.” And then we’ll get some air under our wings again.”

Kerstin Münstermann certainly has her doubts about this; she sees big differences between the partners, especially in pension policy: “The FDP will primarily have a stock pension, the SPD will maintain a holding line at 48 percent.” But the young politicians say: That is true Totally unfair and undermines the generational contract.” In a country that is sliding “from an economic miracle into an economic debacle,” this is difficult to sell. For the traffic light as a whole, after the change in leadership at the Greens, she sees a lot of disagreement with regard to pensions and the budget. “There are so many crystallization points that I feel like it doesn’t fit anymore.”