Chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far managed to get rid of the centrifugal forces of the traffic lights. After the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, this is over.
There is this famous picture of the three monkeys who hear nothing, see nothing and say nothing. With the incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz it is exactly the other way around. He sees everything, even in advance, he knows everything, always knew everything beforehand, and always has an eye on everything that is coming. That’s what he says, and he exudes it with every pore. And by the way, not just since he became Chancellor.
But sometimes the boring reality hits the world of Chancellor All-Knowing. This was already the case on occasion when he had not yet been elected head of the first German traffic light coalition at the federal level. As the first mayor of the Hanseatic city, he assured that the G20 meeting in Hamburg would be as peaceful as a port birthday – which subsequently sank into riots and excesses of violence before the eyes of the world.
Scholz is now once again acting as if he had everything under control as Chancellor and that it was the most normal thing in the world that the highest court responsible for the orderliness of political processes had written him a blue letter: What you in the federal government are doing in terms of budget policy , is an unprecedented mess and “void” from start to finish. Simply sticking new labels on already risky shadow households is not possible, according to the harsh verdict of the political notaries from Karlsruhe.
Method Mom: just let me do it
This makes it clear: the Scholz method has come to an end. It has become extinct.
The method, in addition to the display of omniscience, was to promise all three opposing forces in his dysfunctional traffic light everything possible. And the citizens too. After announcing the turning point with billions of dollars in burdens that came with it, Scholz announced to the citizens that nothing would change for them. Just let me do it, was the message, a further development of Merkel’s mother sentence: You know me.
He chose this method because the centrifugal forces are tugging at this coalition. His own party, the SPD, wants to continue to bring social blessings to the people, which his Labor Minister Hubertus Heil is doing with generously increased citizens’ money, as if nothing had happened. The Greens primarily want to push through their sinfully expensive heartfelt desires for the energy transition. And the FDP is the only remaining force in the cabinet that is trying to focus on money and the feasibility and preservation of the performance incentive.
So far, Scholz has managed to make ends meet
These three goals are incompatible and cannot be financed and realized at the same time, especially under the pressure of a world situation that is out of control. Things that don’t belong together and don’t grow together have come together in the traffic lights. But drifting further and further apart.
So far, Scholz has made ends meet. Here a word of power, there a letter to Christian Lindner and Robert Habeck with instructions from the Chancellery. Otherwise, pretend everything is fine.
That has now changed. The two oppositions – the FDP within the coalition and the Union outside the traffic lights – have now represented Scholz. In order to get out of the 60 billion financial hole, the government would have to solve the debt brake, although neither the FDP nor the Union (whose votes would be needed for this) would take part. Or he would have to massively increase taxes, which would be resented by voters who are already plagued by inflation.
Driven into a corner by the FDP and the Union
Third solution: He has to say goodbye to the billion-dollar projects of his three forces or at least make significant cuts: citizen’s benefit, basic child support, the expensive cushioning of the costs of the heating transition.
As Germany has gotten to know its Chancellor over the past two years, he will still try to maneuver his way through. This will cause additional attrition in the polls. And after two handshakes from the political moral guardians from Karlsruhe (one on the heating law in the summer, now the one on the 60 billion shadow budget) in just two years in office, a third major rebuke from the Federal Constitutional Court could soon be imminent:
The next defeat is looming
Because there is still the traffic light electoral law reform, where from an interested layperson’s perspective it is actually questionable whether the constitutional guardians can let the heart of this reform get through: that a direct mandate won does not necessarily ensure entry into the Bundestag.
