As of: February 6, 2024, 5:30 p.m
By: Georg Anastasiadis
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Party leader Christian Lindner and his Liberals should leave the traffic light government and thus clear the way for a new beginning, comments Merkur editor-in-chief Georg Anastasiadis.
© Ann-Marie Utz/dpa/dpa/Klaus Haag
FDP leader Lindner has it in his hands: Will he implement the 2030 Agenda he demands in the traffic light government or will the Liberals leave the alliance with the SPD and the Greens in time?
A comment by Georg Anastasiadis.
Those who are said to be dead live longer - but even the most virtuoso survivors are not granted eternal life.
With each passing day in the disastrous traffic light government, the spirit of life is draining away from the FDP.
Initial surveys only estimate it at three percent.
Heating laws, citizens' money, energy policy - so much misery was too much for even the most ardent and understanding liberal voters.
There has never been a more unpopular federal government.
And never has party leader Christian Lindner's motto that the FDP would rather not govern than govern badly been reduced to absurdity.
The FDP must now clear the way for a new beginning
Out of state political responsibility, the Liberals allowed themselves to be made responsible for the traffic light government after the federal election in 2021 (which was botched by the CDU/CSU).
But the three-way alliance of the Freedom Party with the powerful state-believing parties SPD and Greens has proven to be a historical error.
The FDP was only left with the thankless task of preventing something even worse.
Today, the FDP has a different responsibility for the country: it must clear the way for a new beginning, so that a government that is dragging its feet in its death throes does not make the right-wing radicals even stronger.
After the green Federal Economics Minister Habeck's statement, which amounted to a declaration of bankruptcy, that Germany's companies are "no longer competitive" internationally, two trains in the traffic light government are racing towards each other.
As the beginning negotiations for the 2025 federal budget will show, the SPD and the Greens are not ready for a 2030 Agenda with a reform of the labor market and corporate taxes.
But this is exactly what the FDP leader has now ultimately demanded.
If there is no agreement on this question of national fate, Lindner will have no choice: he must end the coalition in order to avoid continuing to be complicit in the country's decline.
Whether the FDP survives this will depend on whether there are enough citizens who thank them for turning off the traffic lights with their electoral cross.
What is certain, however, is that if Lindner misses the last exit, the end of German liberalism will be sealed.
George Anastasiadis