Moderator Maybrit Illner (archive picture 2015)
Photo: Jens Kalaene / dpa
There are panel discussions that are actually not needed.
There is also no speculation about eggs that the chickens are still perching on.
Four weeks after the election, however, it is entirely justified to ask whether the emerging coalition will be the “lowest denominator” or a “big hit”.
In short: "Traffic lights priceless?"
A German traffic light costs around 34,000 euros when it is introduced.
That is already expensive enough, but very helpful for smooth traffic.
A government made up of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP is facing the "task of the century" (Olaf Scholz) of transforming the German economy towards climate neutrality.
One would like to know where exactly it will rub.
Especially since the currently happily rising prices for gas, oil or petrol are sometimes sold as an educational measure.
Katarina Barley (SPD) welcomed the recent increases in prices as sensible in order to "achieve a certain steering effect", the freezing grandma with the empty oil heating in the basement should "invest more in renewable energies".
So how should what is to come, actually be cushioned socially?
The question is not entirely unimportant if something like broad social acceptance for the upcoming change is to be achieved.
The question is also raised at Maybrit Illner.
But first it must be clarified whether Norbert Röttgen (CDU) feels severe "pain" about not being allowed to negotiate.
It hurts a lot, he announces happily.
But "black-green, that screwed up the CDU and the Greens in this election campaign."
"Frau Baerbock, butter the fish!"
Then it is the turn of the eggs that are currently still being incubated.
The basis is the paper for the planned traffic light coalition, where the stakes are already “struck” and the handwriting of the parties is recognizable: “Ms. Baerbock, butter on the fish!” Says Illner: How should the upcoming agenda be financed “seriously”?
The Green calls the "financial sector one of the most difficult," and Christian Lindner (FDP) steps in.
Lindner is having the best time of his life right now.
When he speaks, he sounds like an overqualified plumber in front of a half-finished instantaneous water heater: “We then take this green cable and connect it ... here to the yellow one, like that, and then the pump starts working.
Did you hear that little clack? "
Of course he doesn't say that.
He prefers to speak of a billion euros for plug-in hybrids "also for high earners", which one can certainly save.
From »market-based instruments to advance important investments with private capital«, for example through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) to finance historical Herculean tasks.
After all, he rules out using the credit line, which has been expanded due to the pandemic, to create a cushion for the next government's political projects.
There will be no »undemocratic shadow budgets«, for example through outsourcing to agencies or institutions without parliamentary control.
And the question of social cushioning?
For people who don't sit in well-heated apartments in old buildings and, if it's good for the environment, like to spend two euros more on their red wine?
Tactical vs. strategist
First the historian Herfried Münkler from Munich is involved and repeats the question of the broadcast, only in the professorial language of a historian.
One will see "whether this coalition, after it has entered the template with the semantics, is also able to implement it."
From an academic distance, he sees the program "shrewd tacticians", how a democracy unfortunately produces them.
What is needed for long-term tasks, however, are "strategists".
With this he offended Lindner and Baerbock a little: "What kind of politicians would we be," Annalena Baerbock exclaims, "if we don't say we'll tackle this now?"
Lindner takes Münkler's model volley and explains: "We want to find a strategic approach to climate protection and get out of the small parts".
Now Illner asks directly the question of social cushioning, it says on her note.
Before that, however, the present climate paper has to be discussed at the request of an increasingly better-tempered Röttgen.
He had "read through it three times", found no statement about the annual examination of the sectors and now wants to know: "What is the announcement from this government?" not me, please explain it to me! "
Baerbock then explains how it behaves with the individual sectors - transport, industry, housing - in such a way that environmental policy progress in these areas would definitely continue to be checked annually: "Every sector makes its contribution," it says in this paper.
What does it mean that this is also checked: "How else should you know whether he is making his contribution?"
Now would be a good opportunity to talk about social cushioning ... wouldn't it?
Did the FDP negotiate better than the Greens?
No, now is the opportunity to ask who has negotiated better so far.
All points of the FDP can be pithy, all concerns of the Greens rather vague.
"Sorry!", Baerbock apologizes, "that's politics," everything is very complicated, EU, pocket calculator, unlaid eggs.
Illner lifts the chicken gently: "Did Mr. Lindner negotiate better than you?" Lindner statesmanlike: "No, this is about fairness."
Because she does not get an answer from those involved, the moderator turns to the CDU man, who he thinks is more suitable as finance minister - Habeck or Lindner?
Röttgen, beaming: "It is actually not my original interest to appear here as an advisor."
Basic prices - oil, gas, gasoline, even fruit - have risen by a quarter compared to the previous year.
There may be complicated reasons for that, calculators, the EU, Putin, but it won't get any better in the long run either.
Especially not when a “task of the century” has to be tackled.
There are people who are already suffering from these conditions more than the Greens and FDP or their voters can possibly imagine.
It would have been in the original interest of those affected to learn something that evening about how - and whether at all - the future coalition intends to cushion these existential hardships.
With government action perhaps?
As I said, the question was in the room.
She even jumped up and down nervously, snapped her fingers, wanted to be picked up - but was, once again, simply overlooked.
If there are not gradually concrete answers to these questions, the traffic lights will not only start working with a social as well as moral mortgage.
You will fail because of it.