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FDP Chairman Lindner: "Hold on tight, take a lot of glue."
Photo: RONALD WITTEK / EPA
A typical FDP slogan is emblazoned on the back wall of the State Opera.
"The future believes in us" is written there.
Christian Lindner, Federal Minister of Finance and party leader, is in front and wants to give his speech at the traditional Epiphany meeting of the FDP in Stuttgart.
But he gets disturbed.
Climate activists have sneaked into the audience, singing a song from the stands and lowering a banner demanding an immediate speed limit.
Lindner waits a moment, then he calls: "My appeal to you: stick tight, use lots of tape, because if you stick here, you can't block anyone else!" The audience cheers and claps.
Lindner has made his point, the demonstrators quickly fall silent.
Epiphany in the Baden-Württemberg state capital is always a place where the FDP reassures itself.
No audience was admitted for two years because of the pandemic, and now the hall is full again - if not quite: In the back seven rows, where a group of young liberals in yellow hoodies have sat, there are many seats free.
Aftermath of Corona?
Or has the FDP lost so much sympathy in the traffic light?
Most recently, the FDP lost three out of four state elections, and this year there are four more - first on February 12 in Berlin.
What is striking about all the speakers who speak next to Lindner on the podium that day: The FDP losses in the past twelve months are not a public issue.
At most, the problem of the Liberals, which they have as the smallest partner in the traffic light coalition, is touched on in passing.
In a coalition, it is "undoubtedly not easy," says party leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner - but compromises are necessary.
Incidentally, he mentions an article in the British The Economist.
He certifies that the federal government has managed the country well through the crisis so far.
Lindner defends the fact that his party sometimes irritates the Greens in the coalition with a comparison.
He read a newspaper comment that the FDP should please submit proposals that fit the Greens.
He, on the other hand, recommends that his party "submit proposals that match reality".
And, without naming the Greens, he adds, to the delight of the audience, that they will stick to it - "in cheerful penetrance".
And so in Stuttgart the extension of the service life of the remaining nuclear power plants is once again being brought into play: An energy concept "without bans on thinking and ideology" is needed, which also includes extending the service life beyond April 2023.
This is aimed indirectly and without naming at Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck.
Everyone in the hall knows who is meant, there is long applause.
In the FDP milieu, the topic is obviously well received.
When it comes to integration, Djir-Sarai becomes clear
And then there is another topic that is on the Liberals' minds that day: New Year's Eve and its consequences, more precisely: the riots in Berlin and the debate about it.
Djir-Sarai was born in Iran and came to Germany as a child.
He thought long and hard about speaking out on the subject.
Now he says the pictures shocked him too.
Anyone who attacks rescue workers, firefighters and police officers is attacking “all of us”.
As a liberal party, the issue is approached “objectively and in accordance with the rule of law,” he says.
You don't taboo and filter the truth like the left, but also talk about "deficits" in migration policy.
But you also don't go the way of "the right," says Djir-Sarai.
"Liberals fight prejudice, they don't stir up prejudice."
The Berlin CDU can feel addressed by this, especially its parliamentary group in the House of Representatives.
She now wants to know the first names of the suspects with German citizenship.
It is an election campaign maneuver that the Christian Democrats are using to fish on the far right and cater to resentment.
Djir-Sarai clearly distinguishes himself from this in Stuttgart.
Sebastian Czaja, on the other hand, FDP top candidate in the capital, relies on law and order: Anyone who violates the "rule of law should only hear a bang in the future - the bang of the barred door in jail," he says.
The sentence is particularly well received by the audience.
Lindner said not a syllable on this topic that day, but this much becomes clear at a meeting with him: he wants to position the FDP in this sensitive field as a cosmopolitan party.
So here too: differentiation from the CDU.
In his speech in Stuttgart, the finance minister addressed other issues.
He talks about the national security strategy, warns against wanting to decouple completely from the Chinese market, acknowledges the role of the FDP as advocate for the "hard-working middle class", promises an "additional education billion" annually and defends the delivery of Marder armored personnel carriers to the Ukraine.
Here, however, he warns that it is important for the Allies to bring about such resolutions "quickly."
A small dig at the chancellor.
Lindner, it becomes clear, wants to continue to govern after 2025 - if necessary continue to side with the SPD and the Greens.
"If this coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP wants to have a chance of re-election, then it will only succeed if we put our country back on the road to economic success."
How is that supposed to work?
Lindner, with a touch of irony, brings up another FDP classic: the SPD and the Greens don't know it yet - but the FDP has "not yet stopped thinking" about tax policy.
It doesn't sound like things are about to get any easier in the coalition.