Decision week
Friday, dear people, there will be something.
The SPD, the Greens and the FDP then want to look at a maximum of eight pages "basis for decision-making" which the general secretaries of the parties are currently working on (the federal executive director of the Greens is also meant here).
And maybe they will decide to announce the engagement and prepare for the wedding.
Coalition negotiations could start as early as next week.
If the appearance (also) determines the consciousness, then the traffic light probes are well on their way.
In particular, the staging of green-yellow proximity has been striking in the past few days: the way Annalena Baerbock, Robert Habeck, Christian Lindner and Volker Wissing came together during the explorations, that had a signal effect.
All dressed in dark clothes, Habeck casually with the student bag over his shoulder, Wissing always a little more dashing, Lindner with neatly whitewashed sneakers, which is considered smart in middle-class circles.
He imitates a
pose of the Greens
(Joschka Fischer!), But combines it with the bourgeois virtue of the most careful shoe care.
As if they came from the funeral of the old popular parties
, wrote the days of a very good friend from France about this photo.
To me, the SPD - especially its Secretary General Lars Klingbeil - actually appears to be the moderating part that holds the business together and, in the end, puts the Chancellor on top.
The strength of a
new social-liberal reform coalition,
on the other hand, will have to come from the interplay of the green-yellow center parties.
And here is the crux of the matter: It takes interaction and integration, not just compromise.
In the end, whether that succeeds depends above all on the staff.
A cross-camp three-party coalition as a result of a fragmented party system does not make that impossible per se, as some seem to assume.
The opposite is true: the traffic light does not have to become an alliance of convenience or even a compulsory alliance, as was the case with the grand coalition under Angela Merkel. The necessity for a party coalition, as the Austrian democracy founder Hans Kelsen put it nicely in the twenties, leads in the best case to the fact that minor differences between the parties are put aside in order to "agree on the most important common interests". Seen in this way, black-red was not a real alliance because there was no real common interest.
According to Kelsen, the need for an agreement will be shifted from the electorate to that of parliament through coalitions.
Or, to say it with Christian Lindner:
This is a thing for professionals!
Kelsen agrees with Lindner: "The political integration that is part of the party coalition is inevitable and, in terms of social technology, by no means means an evil, on the contrary, it means progress."
Well then, you can turn off the traffic lights now!
Traffic light explorations: the general debate
Is the CSU canceling its Söder-S?
Everyone is talking about Armin Laschet.
We have to write about Markus Söder here.
Because while the Bavarian Prime Minister always seems to be on the offensive at the federal level and in relation to the CDU and his party
would like to model
the
"spearhead of the opposition"
(Copyright: ex-CSU boss Theo Waigel), he is on the defensive at home.
Because it is like this: On the one hand, Söder has good personal poll numbers, on the other hand, he has so far not been able to bring this PS on the road in elections: In the state election in 2018, the CSU achieved a meager 37.2 percent, in the federal election three weeks ago it was even only 31.7 percent.
The question of guilt for both election results has been clarified in another way: After the Bayern election, Horst Seehofer had to vacate the position of the party leadership, after the defeat in the federal government, Laschet, after some hesitation, embarked on the long and arduous path of saying goodbye to the CDU chief post.
So it wasn't because of Söder.
Or is it?
A little?
In any case, the Franconian is now facing headwinds from the group that has represented his most loyal fan base over the years: the Junge Union.
At their regional assembly last weekend in Deggendorf, the Bavarian Young Unionists corrected the board's draft for a declaration on how to come to terms with the electoral defeat by a three-quarters majority (!).
Originally it was said that it was time to "form a powerful, fresh team behind our strong workhorse Markus Söder, which credibly covers the entire spectrum of a people's party".
In the end, the
“draft horse Markus Söder” was
deleted.
"Fresh team" here, the (painted) draft horse Söder there?
Söder will not take this lightly.
Whoever is accused of political or physical freakiness in this sometimes brutal power machine CSU must be careful.
Do you remember that the muscular Söder made his predecessor Seehofer look like the sick man from the Isar? Or Edmund Stoiber, who politically incited Max Streibl's predecessor until he climbed a mountain with a large crowd of journalists to prove his fitness. Or Günther Beckstein, who said that with two liters of beer you could - probably he - still drive a car with pleasure.
Old Söder rivals use the template of the JU: CSU Vice Manfred Weber urges not so much to chase after moods, but to turn to the bourgeois core clientele.
A swipe at the politician Söder.
And Ilse Aigner, who Seehofer once tried to build up as a candidate for prime minister, now speaks of the many personalities in the CSU who could complement Söder.
At the JU they had criticized Söder's supposed "one-man show".
But
if you tell Söder to integrate into a team, you can also tell a fish in the water that it should stroll ashore every now and then in the future.
It won't do anything.
Incidentally, Aigner also uses a Christian social classic to light a chairman: She sets the bar extra high for a future result. May Söder be measured against it. "It is undisputed that we would rather govern alone," she told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, with a view to the state election in 2023, and thus gives nothing less than the absolute majority as the goal. Against the background of the current figures, that seems like an unfriendly act. "You have to set goals", says Aigner. And who wants to contradict her?
Fighting for an absolute majority, narrowing down the mood, ending the “one-man show”
: three wishes at once to Markus Söder.
We can look forward to his reaction.
Maybe it will come on the weekend: It's JU Germany Day, that is, party convention.
Laschet will be there, just like Friedrich Merz, Ralph Brinkhaus, Jens Spahn - and Söder.
Planned CDU realignment: young executives wanted (f / m / d)
What the polls say
The majority of Germans are relaxed about the formation of a government.
“Would a traffic light coalition with Olaf Scholz as Chancellor be good for Germany?”
Pollsters from the Civey Institute asked people on our behalf
- and a
little more than 50 percent say yes.
A good 37 percent, however, are skeptical.
It gets interesting if you break down the values according to party preferences.
As expected, the supporters of the SPD and the Greens are big traffic light fans.
The situation is completely different with the Liberals:
only a third of the FDP sympathizers are convinced that the traffic lights will do the republic good.
50 percent have more or less major doubts.
In order to turn this mood around, Christian Lindner and his team have to negotiate well in the coming weeks.
There is little movement
in the
Sunday question
compared to the previous week.
The SPD is losing easily and is at the level of its election results from two and a half weeks ago.
The Union would come to just 20 percent.
The FDP and the Greens are scrambling for third place.
The top 10 constituency winners
Instead of a constituency of the week, today we are presenting you with the ten politicians who received the highest percentage of first votes.
The ranking list compiled by our colleague Okan Bellikli is headed by
SPD man Johann Saathoff
in the Aurich - Emden constituency with 52.8 percent.
CDU Vice Silvia Breher booked the best union result in Cloppenburg - Vechta.
With Karl Lauterbach and Lars Klingbeil, two SPD celebrities are also among the top 10.
What is actually going on in Austria?
We have been dealing here since spring with the German super election year, its results and consequences. As an exception, today we take a look at our neighbors in Austria. Because while a government is being formed in this country, one is trying to save itself there. We would therefore like to recommend our new weekly newsletter about Austria to you: In
»Die Lage: Inside Austria«
- a cooperation between SPIEGEL and »Standard« - you will receive all relevant news, exclusive research and background information: Here you can sign up for the newsletter Log In.
In addition, we are starting a new podcast next Saturday:
A system of intrigue and corruption?
My SPIEGEL colleague Sandra Sperber and Zsolt Wilhelm from the Austrian “Standard” reconstruct Sebastian Kurz's incredible rise and fall in “Inside Austria” based on hundreds of pages of confidential investigation files that both editorial offices have and interviews with former companions.
Subscribe to “Inside Austria” on Apple Podcast, Spotify or any other podcast player.
The stories of the week
I would particularly like to recommend these politically relevant stories from our capital city office to you:
Personnel renewal of the CDU: One will definitely go - but who will go with you?
Comment on anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist teenage tweets by Green Youth spokeswoman Sarah-Lee Heinrich: The outrage comes too late
Traffic light soundings: where do the billions come from?
Heartfelt,
Your Sebastian Fischer
And once again the note on our own behalf: You can order this briefing as a newsletter in your e-mail inbox here.