Status: 18.08.2023, 19:55 p.m.
By: Judith Goetsch
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Lisa Paus uses her right of veto against Lindner's plans and triggers a fundamental discussion in her party. How do the Greens want to govern?
Berlin – The blockade of the Growth Opportunities Act by Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus (Greens) is putting a strain on the traffic light coalition and is also causing disputes within the Greens within the party. According to information from the Tagesschau, the Greens actually have nothing against the planned law of Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP). The blockade is more likely to be understood as a power move by Paus. Lindner and Paus have been arguing for months about how much money should be available for the introduction of basic child benefits from 2025. The Minister of Family Affairs said that her house had calculated various variants, which the federal government is now discussing.
Greens have the upper hand?
Lindner's planned Growth Opportunities Act provides for billions in tax breaks for companies. Did Paus block in order to put himself and the funds for the basic child benefit in a better negotiating position? Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck probably approved Lindner's law. According to the Tagesschau, he is accused of betraying his own values within the Greens, too much kowtowing to the FDP.
With her blockade, Paus is now opposing her party colleague and vice-chancellor. The Growth Act is now to be passed at the end of August at the cabinet retreat in Meseberg. Habeck himself has not yet commented on the matter. As the Tagesschau reports, Michael Kellner, Habeck's confidant and state secretary in the Ministry of Economics, does not consider the matter to be dramatic.
The party's left, in particular, now sees Paus' blockade as an important step. Astrid Rothe-Beinlich, parliamentary group leader of the Greens in the Thuringian state parliament, strengthens her party colleague in a tweet: It would be high time to stand up to the FDP. Green Group Vice-President Andreas Audretsch, on the other hand, is more cautious. It is "absolutely right that the Federal Minister for Family Affairs has a view that what both agree on together, is with the basic child benefit, then actually becomes reality," he said on Deutschlandfunk.
Lisa Paus ©, Christian Ditsch | Epd
Criticism from the FDP and the opposition
Deputy FDP leader Johannes Vogel appealed to the Greens to "sort themselves out until we meet again in the Bundestag in September." "We have not yet lost any time, the Bundestag would not discuss the law until September anyway," he said on the Phoenix television station. CSU state group leader Alexander Dobrindt, on the other hand, accused the traffic light coalition of incompetence.
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"There is hardly a more obvious way to display the concentrated inability to govern and the lack of a common will to govern," Dobrindt told the Augsburger Allgemeine. The CDU Economic Council also voiced sharp criticism. Association General Secretary Wolfgang Steiger tells the newspapers of the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland that Germany as a business location suffers from day-to-day political whims and internal government power games in the traffic light. "This destroys all predictability and residual trust," he complained.
Paus herself told Die Welt that she did not believe in "playing off economic support measures or higher defense spending against more funds for families at risk of poverty." If savings have to be made, however, setting priorities is a particular challenge: "Of course there are distribution conflicts," she emphasized. But the parental control would come. No sooner said than done: On Friday (18 August), she presented the bill. (Judith Goetsch/AFP)