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Economics Minister Robert Habeck: Learning at high speed and in front of running cameras
Photo: INA FASSBENDER / AFP
It all started so well - the selfie of the party leaders of the FDP and Greens a good year ago not only promised a new style of politics and communication, but also a spirit of optimism after 16 years for Angela Merkel.
Opposites can be overcome through learning politics - this is the ideal of the young traffic light government in late autumn 2021. They saw themselves as a progressive coalition, not only in terms of content, but also in terms of communication, in dealing with each other and with regard to the major challenges.
Just learning.
The war abruptly and permanently changed the coordinates of political action;
the speed with which the traffic light coalition has to come up with new solutions is breathtaking.
It is inevitable that mistakes will be made here and will continue to happen in the future.
Learning at high speed and in front of the cameras and far away from the desired ideal state is something different than shaping politics in peace on the basis of expertise and assessments.
But isn't it the case that resolutions have to prove themselves, especially in times of crisis?
Learning politics can only work and herald a new era if it establishes itself even in challenging times.
That would be the real double boom!
But first, it is important to distinguish between two types of mistakes in politics.
The substantive error and the personal misconduct.
The former is about errors in content and craftsmanship.
It is about a policy that can also correct and readjust its course.
Without malice and night kicks.
There is also personal failure – this means character weaknesses, often lying.
Above all, lying for one's own benefit.
For example, family minister Anne Spiegel, who resigned in the spring, tried to remain in office by lying (that she was involved in cabinet meetings), and even a completely disconcerting public apology in front of the cameras didn't help here.
So let's take a look at the error in the content: Sometimes the correction of the content works right away: Do you remember the Easter peace that Merkel first decreed in the last Corona spring and then took it back after three days with the words "This error is unique and my fault alone.«?
Size shown, mistakes admitted, sponge over it.
Didn't harm the chancellor.
There are also substantive corrections that were talked about by the public and political opponents: Do you still remember Obamacare?
The reform of the century in the American healthcare system suffered from many small technical errors, which were repeatedly corrected, unfortunately with image consequences for the project and President Obama.
There are also about-faces in politics, i.e. a complete reorientation and readjustment in a certain policy area: We saw this on a large scale in 2011 with the phase-out of nuclear energy.
In June 2011, the Federal Cabinet, led by Angela Merkel, decided in a special session to phase out eight nuclear power plants and to phase out nuclear power in stages by 2022. This initiated a fundamental energy transition that was welcomed by a majority of Germans.
The concept of a turning point shaped the Chancellor's programmatic speech just three days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and stands for a complete reorientation not only of our security and foreign policy.
The economy also knows that mistakes are part of it.
So "Fuck up Nights" are organized in many places with the motto "Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn".
There are already initial attempts by the non-profit Hertie Foundation, in which politicians talk about their political mistakes and how they dealt with them at the time.
If we always remain in a state of rigidity to avoid mistakes, we cannot succeed in the big hit, the good idea.
Fear of mistakes inhibits.
So far so good.
But the whole debate and argument about the issue of error culture will not get us any further if we do not accept it in the decisive situations.
If we step down in crucial situations and only seek our own advantage, this even endangers representative democracy in the long term.
The problem can currently be clearly observed in the dispute over the gas price brake and the gas price cap.
Let's briefly summarize what happened: Economics Minister Robert Habeck worked under high pressure to find a solution for the explosively rising energy prices - a gas levy was supposed to be the solution.
In the coalition, it was first discussed by all parties, then decided and even commented on benevolently.
When the public pressure on this apparently insufficiently thought-out solution grew louder and Habeck himself admitted to making mistakes, the coalition left him in the lurch.
Lindner teased, Scholz followed suit – in sport you would say: bad team performance, no team spirit.
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Here the intention of the learning coalition meets the merciless reality, the logic of power.
This logic is about securing advantages if the situation allows it, overtaking the other in the voters' favour, and still reaching the five percent hurdle in the upcoming Lower Saxony election campaign.
Are Habeck's excellent polls and his new political style Christian Lindner a thorn in your side?
It can be assumed.
Do both Lindner and Scholz have the election in Lower Saxony in mind?
But sure.
But this is not how we create an honest and sustainable error culture in politics.
You must always be allowed to make mistakes in terms of content and craftsmanship, even during election campaigns and times of crisis.
And we will see more of this, because politics has to be shaped under high pressure at the moment, and the best solution may only be possible with readjustments.
Our problem is not the content errors, but how to deal with these errors.
If the media continues to react with malice and ridicule and the political opponents primarily try to make their own capital out of the mistakes of the coalition partner, not only will trust in politics suffer, but even worse: the political business itself will suffer unattractive in the long run, representative democracy has dried up.
Which young, politically committed person enters such an environment?
If we keep accusing politicians of not being able to do it, we will soon have no more young people - and representative democracy will run on the ground ice.