How FDP and Greens could form a coalition
There was a lot of ranting this week about this INSM advertisement, in which Annalena Baerbock was shown as Mose, with the (alleged) 10 commandments of the Greens under her arm: no more flights, no free trade, no internal combustion engine, and then no more » more beautiful living «, although it is not entirely clear how exactly the Greens want to spoil our apartments from the perspective of the INSM. By a green plant obligation? With solar panels on the roof, perhaps? But now even the grand coalition wants to make it compulsory.
As flat as the campaign is, I can imagine that many Germans still found it very appropriate, regardless of whether we journalists are upset about it. The narrative of the green “prohibition party” with its “climate religion” persists, and we recently highlighted the gap between the noble environmental goals of the Germans and their true willingness to change.
So who chooses someone who fears Baerbock's "re-education" and shares the INSM's humor? One point of contact could be the FDP, which Christian Lindner is currently returning to its origins as a tax-cutting party. The liberals have made no new burdens, no loosening of the debt brake and the greatest possible protection of industrial agriculture;
Nevertheless, in the end Lindner could almost be forced to enter into a traffic light coalition with Baerbock as Chancellor - and both the FDP and the Greens might find that they harmonize surprisingly well. A team of SPIEGEL editors has analyzed where it fits and where it crunches in our new issue. You quote the Green domestic politician Konstantin von Notz, who says: "There are forces in the FDP who want nothing to do with the Greens, but there are also a lot of others."
Nevertheless, it could be decisive whether the FDP could keep its tax promise in a traffic light, together with the SPD.
"There are liberals who wonder what happened to their party leader," report my colleagues.
Especially since there is a rivalry over the key ministry in the government: Greens boss Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner are both targeting the finance ministry in the case of a coalition.
Possible coalitions after the election: Greens and FDP have come closer than you think
Which consultants Laschet listens to
You still hear very little programmatically from CDU Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, but you now know what he definitely does not want, namely to participate in an election debate with Baerbock and SPD candidate Olaf Scholz, moderated by Youtuber Rezo. Laschet rejected a corresponding offer from Rezo, the journalist Tilo Jung and our friendly competitor Zeit Online.
The fact that Laschet does not want to be moderated by someone who has ever wanted to "destroy" his party is not particularly surprising. And whether it alienates a whole generation, as Rezo claims, the Rezo phenomenon may then make the Rezo phenomenon a tad too big. But where Rezo is right: the under-30s, the generation Fridays for Future, who are more politicized by the climate issue than they have been for a long time, are not necessarily reached by a candidate for chancellor via linear television.
Incidentally, SPIEGEL readers can get to know Armin Laschet from a completely different perspective today.
Not as a candidate for chancellor or party politician, but as a Christian.
The influence of religion on politics has steadily decreased.
There is hardly a top German politician who shows their faith so aggressively, declaring religion as the basis of their life and actions as clearly as Laschet.
What would that mean for his chancellorship, and what advisers does Laschet surround himself with?
On Sunday you can read the analysis by Christoph Hickmann and Lukas Eberle on our website.
The Kurz system wobbles
Today the Austrian AfD, i.e. the FPÖ, elects a new chairman.
The previous boss Norbert Hofer, who ran for the office of Austrian Federal President in 2016, threw in the towel at the beginning of June.
His rival Herbert Kickl seems to be set as his successor, in any case he is now the only candidate.
Hofer gives way to Kickl - you shouldn't overstrain the parallels to the AfD, but it's a bit as if the comparatively moderate Jörg Meuthen was giving way to the agitator Björn Höcke in this country.
With the difference that Höcke has never been a member of a German government.
Kickl, who has been making many excursions into the milieu of conspiracy theorists and corona deniers these days, was Minister of the Interior in the first government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. It was Kickl's dismissal by Kurz after the Ibiza affair that made a decisive contribution to the fact that the coalition of the Kurz list and the FPÖ broke up in May 2019.
Kurz now rules with the Greens, but he is under heavy pressure. "The avalanche that has been rolling towards the head of government for months," writes our Austria correspondent Walter Mayr in the new SPIEGEL, "threatens to tear down central pillars of the Kurz system." before a parliamentary committee of inquiry, the Chancellor could go to court in the autumn. All of the accused deny the allegations made against them.
The Chancellor tries to portray the investigation as a campaign of envy fueled by the opposition and parts of the judiciary, but it will be tight for him.
The original strength of the Kurz system is also its weakness, writes Mayr: “The group from which Austria's fortunes are controlled is well-rehearsed, clearly structured hierarchically and functions smoothly in a technocratic way.
Conversely, this means: advice from outside, alternative approaches, but above all warning calls hardly penetrate the Chancellor's camp, or only late.
Austria's Chancellor and the swamp of Vienna: The Kurz system
Loser of the day ...
... are the lateral thinkers for me. You could almost call them the loser of the month: The sun is shining, the corona incidence is regionally falling into the single-digit range, the vaccination rate is increasing - and exercise is running out of breath. The lateral thinkers have mobilized again for this weekend, and originally 3000 people from the scene were expected in Kassel today. But the event was banned, the ban also held up in court, and now the only question is whether the police will manage to put unconventional thinkers in their place anyway.
In March, when 20,000 people came to the demo in Kassel, the police strategy had failed: Although hardly anyone in the protest march adhered to the requirements, the security forces did not intervene.
This time it will be different, the police promised.
A mask requirement was even imposed for parts of the city center.
But there is a way in which the lateral thinkers could still become winners of the weekend: Simply drive two hours north to Hanover via the A7.
The lateral thinker demo is allowed there.
Inside views of the new party »Die Basis«: alternative practitioners, overthrow fantasies and Jürgen Fliege
The latest news from the night
Catholic Church in the USA:
Large majority of bishops against communion for Biden
Draw against Scotland at the European Football Championship:
harmless English disappointed in the prestige duel
Due to an imminent expiration date:
Palestinians cancel vaccination doses exchange with Israel
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Your Melanie Amann
