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FDP chairman Christian Lindner at the digital party conference in Berlin (May 14, 2021)
Photo: FILIP SINGER // POOL / EPA
The liberal tip is sitting in a small spaceship. At least that is how the two illuminated semicircles, in which the leaders of the FDP have taken their seats in the otherwise dark hall for the federal party conference, appear. At the desk in the middle stands the captain, party leader Christian Lindner, sometimes behind, sometimes in front of or next to it. Again and again he wanders through the room, introducing some key figures of his crew at the end of his speech. He calls his vice Wolfgang Kubicki, for example, "my fatherly friend and partner" - which he acknowledges with a mischievous smile.
The FDP has been a frequent guest here in Berlin-Kreuzberg, but this federal meeting is different: Because of the pandemic, only the closer party leadership is present, the 662 delegates are digitally connected for three days to elect the board and presidium for two more years and to adopt the election manifesto.
Lindner will be re-elected this Friday with 93 percent, two years ago he received almost 87 percent.
At the same time, he is also the top candidate in the federal election campaign.
His message on this day is clear: the FDP wants to govern.
The mood is relaxed because the starting position five months before the general election is much better than the FDP could have hoped a few weeks ago.
The party is between 11 and 12 percent in the polls - and thus only a few percentage points behind the SPD.
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FDP presidium in the hall in Berlin-Kreuzberg: The emptiness of the digital space
Photo: FILIP SINGER / POOL / EPA
For Kubicki - who is confirmed as Lindner's deputy with 88 percent - the survey results are even a reason to dream about more.
He wants third place on September 26th and is aiming for a result above the 10.7 percent that the FDP won in 2017: They want to become so strong that "no serious government can be formed" without the FDP.
Kubicki is once again the liberal predator in the Corona time. "If the defenders of freedom and the rule of law are compared with populists, then that shouldn't irritate us." It should rather be an incentive for the FDP to fight even more for freedom and the rule of law. "If that's populism, then I want to be a populist," shouts Kubicki. Normally there would have been thunderous applause - but this time there is only the emptiness in front of Kubicki.
But because the FDP is now doing so well again in terms of opinion polls, that is no problem on this day.
Not even for Lindner, who spans a wide range in his speech - from the pandemic to spikes against the competition to topics such as tax policy and climate protection.
The FDP, says the party chairman, has "never played down" the dangers posed by the corona virus.
However, the FDP sees "not only the risks to health", but the consequences for society as a whole.
"We feel for the people who fear for their existence, those who fear for their life's work."
Lindner devotes himself extensively to political competition.
He calls SPD top candidate Olaf Scholz a "respectable personality with experience," whose program, however, is not up for election, but that of Saskia Esken and Kevin Kühnert.
He describes the Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, with whom he negotiated the black-yellow coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017, as a "great integrator".
But as far as debt policy is concerned, he is ready to integrate the Greens program before the election.
It is therefore wise not to leave Laschet alone with the Greens, because in the end they will still merge.
The main opponent, however, are the Greens and their top candidate Annalena Baerbock.
The 40-year-old is two years younger than Lindner, which the FDP boss indirectly mentions in a subordinate clause about the members of "my generation".
We do not know "her ability to persevere in the crisis," he says, that does not speak against a candidate, "but it justifies our curiosity."
They are small arrows against the green one.
They culminate in the question that Lindner has been asking again and again for some time: Will Baerbock "also be elected by the Left Party as candidate for Chancellor", who is currently a "well-known Trotskyist" as one of her two top candidates (meaning Janine Wissler)? The FDP must be double-digit and so strong that "both black-green and red-red-green majorities are excluded," says Lindner.
Lindner's speech is a potpourri of liberal classics: social advancement through education, digitization, property formation in housing policy instead of rent caps, additional old-age provision through a "statutory share pension" as in the Scandinavian sovereign wealth fund. When it comes to climate protection - a »question of human survival« - Lindner relies on CO2 pricing and certificate trading, criticizing the current climate policy as being »canted in a planned economy and technologically deadlocked«.
And of course the tax policy: With the FDP in government, there will be "no increase in the burdens on employees and companies," he promises. Everyone can rely on that. "We have already shown that we mean business," emphasizes Lindner. He is well aware of the "scope" of his statement, he says, indirectly referring to the promise made by the tax-cutting party FDP in 2009. A concept with which the liberals once failed in the black and yellow government. Lindner is thus building a high hurdle - for coalition partners who do not want to rule out precisely that: tax increases.
But the FDP leader wants to govern this time after he rejected a Jamaica coalition with the Union and the Greens in 2017: one is ready to join a government, knows that this means “a lot of work” and also “some disappointment”, because not everything can be implemented as quickly as one sometimes wishes.
The debate shows, however, that some in the FDP - despite the polls high - certainly know where the problem is.
The head of the Young Liberals, Jens Teutrine, addresses the FDP's image problem.
There are still many who said, "This is the bigwig party, this is the anti-climate protection party."
According to Teutrine, the FDP must aim at new target groups, take climate protection seriously and think along with economic growth.
And FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing, who has co-ruled in a traffic light with the SPD and the Greens in Rhineland-Palatinate as Vice-Prime Minister for the past five years, had to listen to criticism. A delegate from Wissing's regional association called the 5.5 percent in the state elections in March a "bad result". During the coalition negotiations that led to the re-launch of the traffic lights, the FDP was "pushed onto the ramp". The SPD and the Greens would have known that the party could not have said no. The traffic light in Rhineland-Palatinate could therefore "not be a blueprint for the federal government," warned the FDP man. If it did happen, "the yellow light from the traffic light must outshine everything else."
It was a single voice that day. But it shows what internal challenges Lindner may face if his party is actually needed in a coalition in the fall.