Today the new, the 20th German Bundestag meets for the first time.
Time to take a look at the political groups, their mood, ambitions and problems.
SPD: 206 MPs, plus 53 compared to the 2017 election
You are the electoral winners, make up the strongest parliamentary group and collect your first trophy today: Comrade Bärbel Bas will most likely be elected President of the Bundestag.
The next trophy should then be a Federal Chancellor named Olaf Scholz.
Then it will be exciting.
The last two Federal Chancellors of the SPD had enormous problems with their parliamentary groups, Helmut Schmidt because of the retrofitting and his arrogance, Gerhard Schröder because of Agenda 2010 and his arrogance.
Scholz can also display this quality in excess.
The parliamentary group will try to secure as many shares of power as possible
, against the chancellor and against the other two coalition groups.
The left wing in particular will insist on being visible in the government program.
Conflicts with the FDP are inevitable.
Kevin Kühnert, who is moving into the Bundestag for the first time, could become the number one tormentor for the new Chancellor.
The SPD candidate for chancellor and his life alongside politics: Who is Olaf Scholz?
CDU and CSU: 197 MPs, minus 49
This group is first of all a sad club, a temporary arrangement.
As long as you don't know who the CDU will crown the party leader, you don't know who will be chairman of the parliamentary group in the long term.
Until the end of this power struggle, the Union cannot be a strong opposition party.
Even after that, she has to find her role.
The Union is a born ruling party, it feels out of place in the opposition.
In addition, there is a risk of a sister conflict.
It is to be expected that the CSU will want to expand its influence in the parliamentary group, carried by the feeling that party leader Markus Söder would have been the better candidate for chancellor of the Union.
Söder needs his bridgehead in Berlin above all to prepare for the upcoming state elections.
As usual, he will assert his interests ruthlessly, which is likely to annoy the CDU MPs.
New opposition role: is the Union now marching to the right?
The Greens: 118 MPs, plus 51
The Greens were a movement that entered the Bundestag in 1983.
Now they are a pretty normal party that is being pressured by a movement outside of the Bundestag, Fridays for Future.
The parliamentary group will be caught between the furor of this new apo and the need to compromise with the other ruling parties.
That is perhaps the most difficult role in the new Bundestag.
A few MPs will keep shouting that they are very good experts on topics other than the climate.
One will hardly listen.
The climate will be the big job for the Greens.
Ambitious climate goals meet traffic light reality: the Greens' fear of failure
FDP: 92 MPs, plus 12
The problem with this group is that the strong, currently undisputed leader of the FDP will soon be Vice Chancellor.
Does anyone have the guts to want to give the parliamentary group its own profile against Christian Lindner, who has to support the government's compromises?
The party has been warned: When they rebelled against Guido Westerwelle, who was as powerful for a long time as Lindner is today, the internal dispute was soon no longer manageable and the party was thrown out of the Bundestag.
Traffic light coalition: Lindner indirectly confirms its claim to the Ministry of Finance
AfD: 83 MPs, minus 11
Pressed by a Union that is moving slightly to the right, the AfD could radicalize itself even further and poison the Bundestag with even more unspeakable talk than in the past legislative period.
The only limits here should be fear of the protection of the constitution.
Seating order in the German Bundestag: belching neighbors
The left: 39 MPs, minus 30
Alongside the CDU, this party is the big loser in this election.
But she also has the best chance of making something out of it.
With Olaf Scholz as Federal Chancellor, with the requirements of climate policy and with pressure from the FDP, it will be difficult for the SPD to distinguish itself as a
"party of the common people"
.
The left could easily fill this gap with great promises.
Co-parliamentary group leader: Amira Mohamed Ali sees leftists facing a struggle for existence
Loser of the day ...
… Are, in a good sense, Chancellor
Angela Merkel and her ministers
, who today will receive the discharge papers from the Federal President.
However, you will remain in office until the new government is sworn in.
Good losers are extremely important to a democracy.
There has to be a change every now and then, and then the losers have to step down without grumbling or attempting a coup.
Everything indicates that this will be the case today.
At least two losers of the day are more likely to be winners anyway.
Merkel will probably be relieved that she is taking the next step towards the end of the official burden.
And for Olaf Scholz, the appointment with the Federal President is a further step towards the Chancellery.
The latest news from the night
Australia wants to reduce greenhouse gases to zero by 2050:
Australia had long resisted a fixed date for the zero emissions mark - now the government has declared the year 2050 as the target.
However, it sticks to heavy industry and raw material extraction
Ex-secret service
general
raises serious allegations against the Saudi crown prince:
Saad Aljabri was a powerful secret service agent in Saudi Arabia - now he is one of the toughest critics of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
In a US interview, he talks about murder plans and concerns about his own children
Japan's Princess Mako marries her childhood sweetheart - and moves to the USA:
Three years late and without much fanfare, the Japanese Princess Mako married her fiancé, the commoner Kei Komuro.
She now loses her title and leaves the court
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Yours Dirk Kurbjuweit
