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Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP)
Photo: LISI NIESNER / REUTERS
Corona pandemic, energy crisis, war in Ukraine: In Berlin, the governing parties are looking for the right scope with several current crises.
However, the three traffic light parties often disagree - and the liberals often take a stand against the SPD and the Greens.
FDP leader Christian Lindner has now commented on how he sees his party's role within the alliance.
According to the Minister of Finance, the FDP is the guarantor against a shift to the left in government policy.
"The important role of the FDP results from ensuring that Germany is governed from the center and does not drift to the left," said Lindner of the "world".
"We didn't create the traffic light because we were automatically close in terms of content, but because we have a state-political responsibility."
The FDP sees its role in bringing "liberal energy" into the coalition and thus "strengthening opportunities for advancement, motivation, economic freedom, openness to technology and solid finances," said Lindner.
He gave examples where there were "major disputes" - such as the debt brake and the question of redistribution.
The FDP boss also criticized that "in the course of the green transformation, some want to transform the social market economy into a central administration economy".
Lindner is pushing for the end of electricity production from gas
There is hardly an issue where the inner-coalition quarrel is as clear as the question of a possible lifetime extension for German nuclear power plants.
Lindner spoke out in favor of this on Sunday.
"We have to work to ensure that the gas crisis does not lead to an electricity crisis," he told the "Bild am Sonntag".
"That's why gas can no longer be used to produce electricity, as is still happening."
Lindner spoke again in favor of nuclear power plants running longer: "There are many arguments in favor of not shutting down the safe and climate-friendly nuclear power plants, but using them until 2024 if necessary." However, this is unlikely to be possible with the Greens.
There are currently three nuclear power plants still connected to the grid in Germany: Emsland in Lower Saxony, Isar 2 in Bavaria and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg.
According to the law, however, they should be switched off at the end of 2022.
Among other things, they are discussing letting them run a few months longer in a so-called stretching operation.
FDP politicians, for example, are calling for this, and Green politicians are not ruling it out either.
However, the latter refer to a new stress test for the power supply, which Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) ordered.
However, there has long been a debate about restarting nuclear power plants that have already been shut down.
asc/AFP/dpa