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Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck: The Greens are most likely to convince people at traffic lights
Photo: Hannibal Hanschke / Getty Images
The pressure on the federal government is high.
The traffic light coalition had not been in power for three months when the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed everything.
Since then, the war in Eastern Europe has overshadowed the work of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and his cabinet.
Rising energy prices and the debate about arms deliveries are occupying the citizens and the government alliance.
The 9-euro ticket was pushed through in a hurry, but the fuel discount and climate money caused a dispute at the traffic lights.
In addition, the war endangers the climate goals of the federal government.
And that's not all: The next corona wave is imminent in autumn.
How are Chancellor Scholz and his ministers doing in these difficult times?
The current SPIEGEL government monitor shows: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock from the Greens remains the most popular cabinet member.
Your party colleague Robert Habeck can also score points in his office as Economics and Climate Protection Minister and climbs to second place.
Compared to the last evaluation by the government monitor around three months ago, the chancellor has lost some of his popularity, but he still ranks among the top places.
Unchanged bottom of the government ranking: Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht.
The SPIEGEL government monitor is created in cooperation with the opinion research institute Civey.
It reflects the population's satisfaction with the government as a whole, with the coalition parties, the individual ministers and the chancellor.
In order to be able to compare the representative ratings, Civey works with a so-called scoring method.
(Read more about the procedure here.) The best possible index is 200, the weakest result would be -200.
Greens clearly ahead in the satisfaction comparison
The curve for 2022 shows that overall satisfaction with the traffic light government has recently decreased.
After a dip in February, the value initially rose significantly and was now well above the value at the beginning of the year.
The reactions of the traffic lights in the first weeks of the war seemed to go down well with the Germans.
The hesitant attitude of the past few weeks, on the other hand, could be a reason for the trend reversal.
A different picture emerges when looking at the satisfaction levels of the individual governing parties.
The Greens are currently the best by far in the evaluation.
The party of Foreign Minister Baerbock and Economics Minister Habeck has grown significantly since the government monitor was last evaluated.
In the first few months of government, it came off the worst in a comparison of the three traffic light partners, but the FDP is now at the bottom.
The trajectory of the Liberals falls to the worst value of the year.
The Greens are currently not only the governing party with the highest satisfaction ratings.
They also represent the most popular cabinet members.
Foreign Minister Baerbock continues to lead the ranking.
She is succeeded by Economics Minister Habeck.
He was able to increase his popularity significantly compared to the ranking in March.
50 percent of those surveyed are currently rather satisfied or very satisfied with their work.
Hubertus Heil (SPD) recorded consistently solid satisfaction values.
The Secretary of Labor remains in third place.
And thus even before Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and the Chancellor.
Lauterbach has recently lost a lot of popularity.
The SPD politician lost 37 index points and now ranks fourth.
Chancellor Scholz has also lost index points.
He has recently been repeatedly criticized for his hesitation, but last week he made the long-awaited trip to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
In the SPIEGEL government monitor, Scholz falls from 4th place to 6th place.
New family minister joins midfield
Family Minister Lisa Paus from the Greens has not yet been included in the ranking.
She had taken over the post after Anne Spiegel resigned in April.
While her predecessor ended up in last place, Paus now makes it to 10th place.
What is striking about Paus and other cabinet members in the lower half of the ranking list: the proportion of those who are undecided in the assessment of their work is very large - probably also an indication of the low level of awareness of some ministers.
However, this does not apply to the current tail lights of the government monitor.
Christian Lindner is in 15th and penultimate place.
The Minister of Finance made it to sixth place in March.
In comparison, however, he now has 57 index points less and ends up in second to last place.
In general, the liberal representatives do rather poorly: the best FDP minister in the SPIEGEL government monitor is Justice Minister Marco Buschmann in 8th place.
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht remains in last place.
The SPD politician had repeatedly been criticized in recent weeks.
The continuously updated SPIEGEL government monitor can be found here.
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