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FDP leader Lindner
Photo: Uli Deck / dpa
It almost seems as if it has been rehearsed.
For the second time in the pandemic, the FDP has to hold its traditional Epiphany meeting in the Stuttgart State Theater largely digitally, only very few employees and a few journalists are in the hall.
The new thing this Thursday is the fact that the Liberals are back in a federal government for the first time in eight years.
“Into the New” is therefore emblazoned in large letters on the back wall of the stage.
This does not only apply to party leader Christian Lindner, who will of course also be on the stage that day in his new role as Federal Minister of Finance.
This also applies to Bijan Djir-Sarai, to whom Lindner recently offered the office of General Secretary and who is now holding his first speech as the designated incumbent.
The 45-year-old from North Rhine-Westphalia, who has been an FDP foreign politician in the Bundestag for years and was born in Iran, sounds a little different from the FDP general secretaries who otherwise spoke in this room.
The fight against "racism and anti-Semitism" was a decisive motive for his move into politics, he says.
Djir-Sarai is to set new accents in the party, an FDP that is no longer in the opposition in the federal government.
"I like politics that are empathetic, that are compassionate," that also take care of the needs and concerns of those who did not vote for the FDP.
He would like the FDP to help shape the social debate and not leave that to the SPD, the Greens and the CDU.
He wants an FDP that doesn't ask where someone comes from, but where someone is going, he says.
The general secretary, who still has to be confirmed at a party congress this spring, not only wants to fulfill the classic functions in office, to serve the party as secretary and, if need be, as general.
Above all, he announces that he wants to devote himself to strategic issues and invites the members to develop a model under the heading "FDP 2030" - on the question of "what a liberal, modern party can look like".
The foreign politician also brings his favorite topic with him: The FDP should "deal more with the world outside".
Decisions in Afghanistan or Syria have shown that they have a direct impact on German domestic politics.
It sounds like an appeal not to marginalize the foreign policy field in the FDP, which has grown and cultivated over decades - in the traffic light coalition, unlike in earlier times, his party left the Foreign Office to the others this time.
Old liberal tree criticizes Kubicki
Not a word is said at this Epiphany about the way in which FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki recently criticized the planned introduction of the general compulsory vaccination - as "revenge" and "retribution" by the vaccinated against the unvaccinated.
But the party cannot get rid of the issue entirely.
Shortly before Dreikönig, the old liberal Gerhart Baum is once again the journalistic critic - with an article in the »Handelsblatt«.
Baum rebukes Kubicki sharply: With his statements, he is in the "field of demagogy," and with "such demagogic formulations" he is addressing a milieu "that has very different ideas in addition to opposition to vaccinations," said the FDP politician, Federal Minister of the Interior at the time of the social-liberal coalition.
The 89-year-old also formulated a sentence in his guest post that Lindner then indirectly addressed in his speech.
"Serious individual restrictions on fundamental rights" would have to be accepted when it came to protecting life and health. That was "a top goal of our constitution," and the dead would ultimately lose their rights to freedom, according to Baum.
Lindner now mentioned a different order in Stuttgart, without even mentioning the name Baum: The FDP is about "consistent health protection on the one hand with as much social freedom as possible on the other hand, the protection of health is a great good, but the highest Good for our constitution, that is and will remain the constitution. "
Lindner defended the debate about a general compulsory vaccination, which is being conducted in the Bundestag via group motions and in which Kubicki has already put down a surcharge with a motion.
Compulsory vaccination is a sensitive encroachment on people's right to self-determination, which must rightly be decided without party lines.
Djir-Sarai also took up the debate - without mentioning Kubicki.
The debate is a "methodical-ethical" one, for which it is crucial that it is conducted "respectfully".
Politics must be "exemplary" here.
The way in which we deal with each other in the pandemic will determine how we live together after the end of the pandemic.
Lindner also talks about the CDU
In contrast to previous years, Lindner's appearance was decidedly cautious. Less attack, more statesman. Not only the FDP boss spoke here, but also a cabinet member of the Ampelkoalition - although he gave all the issues an FDP paint job, a balancing act.
For example when it comes to immigration. As ethics of responsibility, the Free Democrats knew: "The prerequisites for a new openness is the control of access to Germany." There was also its own interpretation of the major climate protection project: It is not a niche topic, but rather decides the future and competitiveness of Germany as a location, and the tone in the debates already changed at the start of the traffic lights. The debate before the federal election, which had been “strongly cultural”, has now become one about the “level of technological and financial ambitions”.
Lindner welcomed the fact that the EU Commission wants to include natural gas in the taxonomy - a kind of investment seal of approval for climate and environmental friendliness.
Natural gas is still needed as a bridge and interim solution, but the decisive factor is that natural gas power plants "can one day be converted to hydrogen".
He also criticized the inclusion of atomic energy in the taxonomy, expressly rejected by the Ampel government, with his own note: the technology would lead to lower CO2 emissions, but was "anything but sustainable," and therefore not an option for Germany.
»Where would there be a private insurer who would insure the risk of nuclear energy in the market?
This can only be achieved with state liability.
For a market economist, this is already a sign that nuclear energy is not justifiable from a regulatory point of view, ”says Lindner.
Four state elections are due this year, in North Rhine-Westphalia the FDP wants to continue to govern with the CDU, in Schleswig-Holstein with the CDU and the Greens.
This is what Lindner promises, who expressly praised the “successful work” of the two coalitions.
With the designated CDU boss Friedrich Merz, whom Lindner knows and values personally, he wants to keep in touch with the Union.
»I have hope in Friedrich Merz.
That will decide which way the Union will go, ”he said.
Lindner sends out small poison arrows: Will the Union make the compromises of the FDP necessary in a coalition at every opportunity?
And will she represent the "pure doctrine" and forget what she has not implemented herself in 16 years?
Or is a "real future talk" possible with the current opposition and the future chairman, asks the FDP leader and adds: "We have no interest in alienating ourselves as Free Democrats from the CDU and CSU."
Christian Democrats, as the traffic light coalition said at the Epiphany, are competitors like the SPD and the Greens, but "at the same time also potential partners."
