SPIEGEL situation in the super election year: A fraternity called CDU and the mammoth army of coalition negotiators

Dear reader,

The SPD has solved a women's problem on the question of the President of the Bundestag, the CDU has one more thing: So far, only men are in sight as candidates for party chairmanship.

And: For the coalition talks, the parties send out diplomatic banners - there are 100 negotiators in the SPD alone.

"We can't do it without a quota"

Recently Rita Süssmuth was a guest at "3 nach 9", this wonderfully old-fashioned and well-rested talk show from Radio Bremen.

Süssmuth was confronted with the proportion of women in the new Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which is 23 percent.

The grande dame of the CDU, 84 years old, said a sentence that she probably said in a similar way 40 years ago: "It can't stay that way."

It can't stay that way, it was true.

But it has largely remained that way, and has been for a long time.

And so it will probably stay that way, at least with the CDU.

CDU politician Süssmuth

Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa

A new head will be elected soon, and those whose names are currently being traded for a possible candidacy are without exception men: Jens Spahn, Friedrich Merz, Ralph Brinkhaus, Norbert Röttgen, Carsten Linnemann.

Women are currently nonexistent in this circle of power, as if there has been no step forward in recent years.

Of course, the counterattack is well known: for the past 16 years, the country has been ruled by a CDU woman, a CDU woman is at the head of Europe, and, yes, in front of Armin Laschet was Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a woman from what was once the largest people's party before.

However, the election result and the field of candidates for the chairmanship make it clear: Structurally, the Union is still a long way from parity.

As you can hear, some women in the party still want to try to put up a candidate, the name Silvia Breher, who has been one of the deputy party leaders since the end of 2019.

Or Karin Prien, Schleswig-Holstein's minister of education.

Enlarge image

CDU Vice Breher

Photo: Gregor Fischer / picture alliance / Gregor Fischer / dpa

Both have recently made proposals on how the proportion of women in powerful positions in the Union could be increased.

Breher brought a dual leadership into the discussion, similar to the Greens and the SPD, but their proposal faded.

“That doesn't correspond to our culture,” even Norbert Röttgen, who is considered progressive among the candidates, rejected the idea in the SPIEGEL interview.

And Breher immediately pulled the plug on her own suggestion.

She herself is out of the question, she has three children.

Prien told the Tagesspiegel: “We can't do it without a quota.” The instrument has been discussed in the CDU for ages, the party leadership has already approved its introduction in principle, only the vote of a party congress is still pending.

Courageous advancement of women looks different.

At first glance, the situation with the SPD is better: 42 percent of all MPs in the Bundestag are women, the party is headed by a duo of men and women, and Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz announced a cabinet with equal representation in SPIEGEL.

And yet it was the Social Democrats in particular that got tangled up on the women's issue, as they were shocked to discover that Social Democratic men sit in almost every important position: that of the future Chancellor, the Federal President, the parliamentary group leader.

And also for the post of President of the Bundestag a man was initially traded with Rolf Mützenich, the previous parliamentary group leader.

Mützenich himself has now withdrawn his interest and recommends the faction board to send Bärbel Bas into the race as a candidate for the office of President of the Bundestag.

Bärbel who?

For all those who are not familiar with the ramifications of the party: Bärbel Bas has so far been the health policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group.

You thought it was this Karl Lauterbach, wasn't it?

In the pandemic, he worked like the shadow health minister (or even more), but was not even on the health committee in the Bundestag, but was active in the committee for legal and consumer protection, in the subcommittee on European law and as a deputy in the finance committee.

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SPD health politician Bärbel Bas

Photo: Christoph Reichwein (crei) / imago images / Reichwein

Formally, the SPD has first solved its problem.

The fact that there are apparently only a few women in the group who are also publicly known remains a major challenge.

And how do the others do it with gender equality?

FDP boss Lindner replied to the question of "Bild am Sonntag" whether the cabinet posts of the FDP would be filled equally: "We have not dealt with it." Celebrating progress itself, this answer sounds more like one from the day before yesterday.

The diplomatic corps of the traffic light

When the SPD, Greens and FDP presented their exploratory paper earlier than expected last Friday and this was even more specific than expected in many places, one could get the impression that the conclusion of a coalition agreement was only a matter of form.

I no longer have this impression, which is not only due to the major, foreseeable conflicts, such as the question of how billions can be invested without increasing taxes and ignoring the debt brake.

There are many topics that hardly or not at all appear in the paper: the maintenance reform, the question of the CO2 price, the mobility transition - how many new rail lines should there be now?

My optimism that the formation of the government could go faster this time than four years ago was particularly slowed down when I saw the personnel table that the SPD will come up with in the coalition negotiations: Exactly one hundred names can be found in the 22 working groups that meet will probably meet from tomorrow.

If the Greens and FDP nominate a similar number of negotiators, we will soon experience a kind of UN in Berlin's government district: A large diplomatic contingent will try to turn the exploratory paper into a concrete coalition agreement.

Lots of chefs ....

As a correspondent in New York, I was able to experience up close how the negotiations on a United Nations resolution are going through research.

It took months before it was ready for the vote.

It was about a topic that one might think there wasn't much to argue about: protecting children in war zones.

The truth was, there was a lot to argue about.

What the polls say

Back to women in politics.

The election of the Federal President is due next February.

Or a Federal President?

In any case, Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced a long time ago that he would like to continue.

Can his SPD contradict him?

The majority of Germans would welcome Steinmeier's re-election by the Federal Assembly: 58 percent responded positively to a question by the opinion research institute Civey for SPIEGEL.

A conceivable candidate for the office would also be the Green Katrin Göring-Eckardt.

Would the SPD leave the leadership of the state to the future coalition partner, as it were as a deal during the coalition negotiations?

The opinion of the Germans on Göring-Eckardt, however, seems clear: 68 percent would not welcome their election as Federal President.

On the Sunday question, not much has changed since last week, the SPD is still clearly ahead, the Union is sticking to the 20 percent mark and the Greens and FDP are vying for third place.

The constituency of the week: # 103

The people in the constituency of Solingen - Remscheid - Wuppertal II can be happy: They are represented by two politicians, which they have only known for a few days.

And it works like this: The direct mandate was won by the SPD politician Ingo Schäfer with 32.6 percent, the previous directly elected representative in Berlin, CDU man Jürgen Hardt, only scored 27.6 percent and was thrown out of the Bundestag after twelve years.

First.

After the announcement of the final election results and a recalculation of the compensatory mandates, Hardt received the surprising news: He managed to move in above his place on the state list.

It must feel like after giving notice to a rental apartment that is then withdrawn.

The things were already packed, the moving van already there, the beautiful sofa sold on ebay.

Hardt, who has devoted almost his entire life to politics and worked in the CDU federal office almost thirty years ago, must have been relieved.

And his parliamentary group too: The 58-year-old is an accomplished foreign politician who loves being clear.

After the poisoning of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny with the neurotoxin Novitschok, he sent me this quote: "The involvement of Russian secret services is inevitably obvious."

The social media moment of the week

Anyone who has ever watched "Bild TV" knows that the silent moment is not necessarily the first association one would associate with it.

This week, however, there was this quiet moment, the panel discussion on the format "A quarter past eight" said goodbye to the dismissed editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt.

The allegations against Reichelt - abuse of power, mixing of professional and private relationships with female employees, exploitation of dependency relationships - were not discussed in the group.

Instead, homage followed thanksgiving after homage.

"The sky is the limit", Reichelt conveyed this feeling.

Only ex- »star« icon Hans-Ulrich Jörges didn't really want to join in the hymn of praise and said: »If you all say it like that, we should actually start a discussion now, but we can't.« And then it was the show is already over.

The audience was confused: "Sorry," was a comment on Twitter, "I no longer know what is meant here seriously and what is not, is that meant seriously?"

I am afraid so.

The stories of the week

I would particularly like to recommend these politically relevant stories from our capital city office and our partner departments:

• What happens when the epidemic of national proportions ends?

• The details of the coalition negotiations.

• The sudden departure of Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann

Heartfelt,

Your Martin Knobbe

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