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Green chief Habeck with SPIEGEL author Markus Feldenkirchen
Photo: Ulrich Bentele / WDR
How quickly a government can be overtaken by reality is sometimes shown in one sentence.
"The situation has changed: Delta variant," says the head of the Greens and designated Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck.
Therefore he is now in favor of compulsory vaccination.
When asked whether he would agree to such an obligation in the fight against Corona in the Bundestag, he answered without hesitation: "Yes".
But at the time when the conversation for the WDR documentary "Confrontation - Markus Feldenkirchen meets Robert Habeck" was held, Habeck's sentence should have been: "The situation has changed: Omikron variant."
There is evidence that this new mutant is far more contagious than the Delta variant, or that it is extremely effective at bypassing immunization - or both.
And that the world, and with it the new federal government, is facing a completely new task.
Habeck has repeatedly persuaded his party not to have any illusions about what it means to govern.
Every crisis will then be the crisis of the Greens, every pandemic, every war, every emergency, every tough decision.
He has also always emphasized the need for forward-looking policies.
On the one hand, the fact that he is talking about Delta at this moment confirms his warning to the party - the crises are rolling over before the government is in office.
At the same time, one senses in that one moment how difficult it is to make politics out of this knowledge.
The WDR production, which will be broadcast on ARD this Monday evening (and can already be seen in the media library), clearly shows that this applies even to someone like Habeck who thinks a lot about the possibilities, limits and constraints of Politics makes.
In one scene, the head of the Greens and SPIEGEL author Feldenkirchen drive in the car the evening after the presentation of the coalition agreement, then walk a few more meters.
In the car, Habeck says: "You sometimes ask yourself: How can you be so stupid as to want to rule?"
And further: "The tasks are so huge, and there will be so much trouble, and I will see so little of my family and so get caught in the crosshairs."
Shortly afterwards Habeck describes what his life was like during the negotiations: “I haven't washed up for ten days.
The garbage is not taken out.
The milk is all.
This morning I ate muesli with water, no shit. ”That's life in politics, too.
Not exactly glamorous.
This is what a politician said a few months ago in an interview with SPIEGEL: "I am an executive."
Later in the film, Habeck also arranges this scene himself.
The scene only showed one side.
"It's a privilege," he says of the chance to become a minister.
"If you break out and talk like I was tired at the beginning of the film, for example, you risk a lot." You are immediately asked: Doesn't he want to rule?
“That wasn't the point at all.
I just didn't speak for a moment as a politician, but as a tired Robert. "
A tired Robert, who may be seen less often in the future.
"You become a different person," says Habeck of life as a public official.
Will the previous Robert Habeck still exist in the future? Asks Feldenkirchen.
"I have no idea," says Habeck.
The strategy didn't work out as hoped
What Habeck says about the coalition negotiations is also remarkable.
"People have already bitten each other and then, after realizing how they can irritate each other, they kept going." Outside it was always said that the Greens negotiated so softly.
Inside it also looked like this: "You are getting ready, the doors are slamming, you are threatening to be demolished."
Also because a central part of Habeck's strategy did not work as hoped - which he also openly admits.
"The Greens and the FDP make that clear to each other, and we get along and let the SPD accrue, has not proven itself to be particularly good in detail," says Habeck.
In the first rounds of exploratory talks, it seemed as if the SPD and CDU played no role at all, as if the Greens and FDP were clarifying who would become chancellor.
There was talk of a green-yellow citrus coalition, whose architect was Habeck.
In the coalition negotiations themselves, however, the roles shifted.
From the point of view of many Greens, the SPD and FDP are moving closer together.
So that in the end the Greens even had to leave the Ministry of Transport to the FDP.
Exactly why is still a mystery, especially green ones.
Part of the answer is probably: Because the FDP and SPD had hooked each other.
Habeck gives another part of the answer in the film: »We decided, Annalena Baerbock and I, essentially in the areas where the coalition agreement spelled out the most progressive agenda, to try to get the departments.
And in the transport sector, I have to admit, we have agreed on a couple of very good things.
In other things, I would say, we are a bit below what is actually socially necessary and expected. "
The interview and portrait format "Confrontation - Markus Feldenkirchen meets Robert Habeck" runs on Monday at 10:50 pm in the Erste and is already available here in the ARD media library.
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