There are some premieres of these days after the SPD party congress. For example, on Tuesday afternoon the new chairman duo will be guests in their own parliamentary group for the first time. Saskia Esken was there regularly since she moved into Parliament in 2013, but so far as a backbencher. Now Esken enters the faction space as a new party leader.
The quest for harmony is great when Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans appear before the SPD members, shaking hands, smiling, good mood for the photographers. Esken takes place as last alongside the left-wing dissident Hilde Mattheis together with Walter-Borjans in the board row, framed by Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz and faction leader Rolf Mützenich.
MEPs would "look forward" to the fact that the two new party leaders could now present their ideas, says Mützenich. It sounds a bit funny: After all, most of the factions in the group are comrades who had insisted on a victory for Scholz and his partner Klara Geywitz. But now it has to go somehow. That the new party leadership has announced its claim to power in the negotiations with the Union? No problem, says Mützenich - but bring in also the faction.
Kay Nietfeld / DPA
Norbert Walter-Borjans, SPD leader Mützenich, Saskia Esken, Olaf Scholz: Demonstrative harmony
At the next premiere of Esken and Walter-Borjans, however, is still working: There will soon be a meeting with CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, it is said that one is still in the scheduling. After all, they have already telephoned one another. CSU boss Markus Söder, on the other hand, knows the former NRW finance minister Walter-Borjans from his time as the highest Bavarian treasurer.
Much must first shake up in this coalition, even human, after the SPD has chosen a new leadership. Or does GroKo break up soon?
The question is still in the room, and even the central players themselves are not aware of the answer: The showdown at the SPD party congress did not materialize - at the same time, the Social Democrats have piled up new hurdles from the EU's point of view. In the end, as some people at CDU and CSU suspect, they are provoking a coalition break. In the union faction, which meets a few meters next to the SPD on Tuesday, the executives emphasize once again as a precautionary measure: no new or renegotiations (Kramp-Karrenbauer), "no welcome presents" (faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus).
Away with the black zero, a minimum wage of twelve euros, higher prices for CO2 - actually sound the SPD demands first for explosives for the coalition. But those who look closely at the wording in the SPD lead application and keep track of how restrained the new chairpersons also handle communicatively, get a different impression: Then the hurdles are not that high anymore.
- Black zero
What the social media department of the CDU has recently jokingly portrayed and defended as its black fetish is only theoretically questioned by the SPD. For example, the government proposal calls for higher state investment, but the concrete formulation is: "In this sense, steady investments should not fail in dogmatic positions such as Schäubles (meaning the long-time CDU Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble / ed . " It also states that "the need for investment" would have to be "recognized independently of the current revenue situation" and "in the downturn also anti-cyclical spending policies by the federal, state and local governments will be made possible".
Yes, we confess, we have a little fetish: Solid finances without new debt! That is practiced intergenerational justice! And it's the best way to invest in the future. We are both. And our household shows: It's both! pic.twitter.com/abIMN64eMO
- CDU Germany (@CDU) November 27, 2019But: The just adopted in the Bundestag budget of SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz with a volume of just under 362 billion euros contains record investments of 40 billion euros - and still manages without new debt. That is, the black-zero debate takes place practically not at all. And should the framework data not deteriorate significantly, Scholz could set up a new record budget for the following year with a huge share of investment, which again avoids new debts.
- minimum wage
The SPD wants a minimum wage of twelve euros. This sounds utopian given the current minimum wage of 9,19 euros. But even here, a look at the concrete formulation helps.
"In order to push back the low-wage sector, Germany needs a higher minimum wage," the purpose of the head request is to "evaluate and develop the minimum wage law as agreed in 2020". Then the decisive sentence: "Our clear goal is in the perspective of raising the minimum wage to 12 euros." Finally, the SPD knows very well that the level of the minimum wage is not set politically, but by the so-called minimum wage commission.
Twelve euros as a perspective goal - this can in turn make many friends in the Union. Thus, the CDU party convention has recently passed a motion of the workers' wing, which argues for a significant increase in the minimum wage - twelve euros are also circulating in the CDU as a benchmark. And CSU country group leader Alexander Dobrindt said on Tuesday with a view to the SPD demand, "perspective is a very inaccurate concept of time" - in a few years, the minimum wage commission will certainly also suggest twelve euros.
- Higher CO2 prices
"We want a socially just and effective CO2 price," it says in the SPD's head request, "the current measures must be further developed." So far, the climate package of the coalition provides for an introductory price of ten euros per ton of carbon dioxide consumption before, the price should rise from 2022. There had also been sympathies for a higher starting price in the Union during the negotiations within the coalition.
It is already unclear whether it will remain at its current level, since part of the climate protection package has been discussed in the Conciliation Committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat since Tuesday. The national chamber had called the panel. Actually, only about the distribution of revenue between the federal government and countries and no longer negotiated on the CO2 entry price, but now also the latter is considered possible. Especially the Greens are pushing for it.
The fact that they will soon be talking about these and other questions within the GroKo is clear - even before Christmas, most likely on Thursday in a week, the coalition committee should come together.
This too will be a first for the two new SPD chairmen.
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