Lindner leads FDP along the abyss

The year 2023 was not an easy one for the FDP: once again, it suffered defeats in state elections and in the traffic light coalition, it stood out as a quarrelsome brakeman. Then the Constitutional Court spoiled the end of the year for party leader and Finance Minister Lindner.

Christian Lindner is not one to shy away from difficult tasks. He proved this at the latest when he took over the chairmanship of the FDP party ten years ago. The party had just been kicked out of the Bundestag after losing the trust of its voters in the black-yellow coalition. The poll ratings at the time were abysmal. In some cases, they were so bad that the FDP was only listed among the "others". But Lindner led the party back into the Bundestag. And how: in 2017, the Free Democrats achieved 10.7 percent, an increase of almost 6 percent. He finally called off the exploratory talks with the CDU/CSU and the Greens, saying: "Better not to govern than to govern badly."

Now, in December 2023, this sentence has an unpleasant topicality for the FDP. This is because support for the traffic light coalition is so low that it can be assumed that a large proportion of voters would like to rub the Finance Minister's nose in this sentence. From the FDP's point of view, the balance sheet is better than one might think: The nuclear power plants ran longer, there is a new law on the immigration of skilled workers and in the case of the citizen's income, it was the FDP that strengthened the idea of benefits. A tax reform is set to bring 15 billion euros in relief from next year. FDP politicians also claim that they made the heating law into something really good. Then there are things like the abolition of Paragraph 219a, which imposed strict regulations on doctors regarding information on abortions. The 49-euro ticket was also an FDP idea - conceived by Transport Minister Volker Wissing.

But people in the country see it differently. In opinion polls, the FDP has been teetering on the precipice of the five percent hurdle for months. This makes the loss of confidence in the traffic light parties the most serious for the Liberals. If they were a soccer team, they would be playing against relegation. In the RTL and ntv trend barometer, for example, the traffic light party scored just over 30 percent, putting it on a par with the CDU/CSU. The poor mood was also reflected in the state elections. In Berlin, the FDP was kicked out of the House of Representatives, while in Bavaria it also failed to re-enter the Maximilianeum. In Hesse, they managed to stay in the state parliament by the skin of their teeth. A small ray of hope was the SPD stronghold of Bremen, where they managed to get back into parliament.

Dissatisfaction at the base

There is also discontent within the party itself. The 77,000 members are currently voting on whether the FDP should remain in the traffic light coalition. This survey is not binding, but it would be a problem for Lindner if the base voted to leave. As expected, he himself is in favor of remaining in the government. In a recent interview with ntv.de, he said that it would not be a good idea "to leave without a good reason". He can certainly hope that the reading: "Leaving the traffic light would be suicide for fear of death" will prevail. Either way, dissatisfaction is making itself felt. There are many reasons for this. One of them was the traffic light party's migration policy, as FDP member of parliamentChristoph Hoffmann explained to ntv.de.

If you think back over the past few months, you mainly remember arguments. In a country where the majority of people say that the opposition is there to help the government govern, this does not go down well. It may be that the FDP was driven by a holy rage to prevent the supposedly diabolical plans of Habeck and his state secretary Patrick Graichen. Doing this behind closed doors and then presenting a solution together did not seem to be an option. There was also a row over the basic child protection scheme - the FDP was against it.

In the ntv.de interview, Lindner rejected the impression that the FDP in particular was looking for a fight. The Greens put the brakes on asylum policy and the SPD repeatedly questioned the debt brake - despite a fundamental agreement that it should remain untouched.

The mood in the coalition was already in the basement in the fall - and the Federal Constitutional Court had not even ruled yet. When the judges in Karlsruhe ruled on the second supplementary budget for 2021 on November 15, the traffic light politicians were looking into an abyss. Right in the middle of it: Finance Minister Lindner. He was already in office when the young traffic light coalition shifted 60 billion euros in credit authorizations from the coronavirus crisis to the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF). This sum had to be canceled as a result of the ruling. And astronomical sums, around 30 billion euros in the budget and KTF, suddenly had to be saved. There was obviously no plan B - perhaps there couldn't have been with such sums.

First kerosene tax, then not

A supplementary budget for 2023 was hastily put together. From then on, Lindner, Robert Habeck and Olaf Scholz set about examining the budget for the coming year for potential savings. It took four weeks. Or so they thought. Because when the three leading politicians announced an agreement last Wednesday, it was a bit of an exaggeration. Because it is still not clear exactly how savings will be made. Sometimes kerosene was to be taxed, then again not. The environmental bonus for e-cars is to be dropped, but there is also opposition to this within the coalition - although this time not from the FDP, but from the SPD. There is also disagreement on the taxation of agricultural diesel. Agriculture Minister Özdemir does not want to support the end of the tax concession. To put it mildly, this is confusing. You could also say a huge mess.

At least Lindner is not in danger of a palace revolution. The 44-year-old has led the party for ten years and is not only its figurehead, but also one of its masterminds and all-purpose election campaign weapon. At the party conference in April, he was re-elected with a very good 88%. This puts him on a par with Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who led the party for one year longer, from 1974 to 1985. After two years in the traffic light coalition, the current chairman finds himself and his party in a tricky situation. As was the case back then with the black-yellow coalition, it is part of a government in which it is finding it difficult to assert itself. In his 2017 book "Schattenjahre" (Shadow Years), Lindner writes that the FDP was only perceived as a "party against" at the time. This is not the only passage that reveals parallels to today - even if Lindner prefers to describe the FDP as a pro-party.

Back then, the FDP had allowed Chancellor Angela Merkel to cancel a tax reform that had actually been agreed. "This basically brought the curtain down on the coalition - except that the actors continued to perform on stage for another three years, while the audience had long been looking for the exits in disappointment." The FDP had not put up enough of a fight against the rejection of the tax reform. "I swore to myself: That will never happen to me again. Voters remember for years that their own agenda was changed, but not why it happened and whether there were good reasons for it."

The next federal election is in the fall of 2025, so Lindner is unlikely to avoid controversy in the future. Because there's one thing he certainly doesn't want: to go down in harmony with the traffic light.

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Despite facing criticism and dissatisfaction from both within and outside the party, Christian Lindner continues to advocate for the FDP's participation in the Traffic Light coalition. In a recent interview, he expressed his opposition to leaving the coalition without a valid reason. Meanwhile, the party is currently conducting a vote among its 77,000 members to decide on their position in the coalition. (FDP, Traffic light coalition, Christian Lindner)

The FDP's position in the Traffic Light coalition has been unstable, with disagreements over migration policy and the basic child protection scheme causing tension. The party has also been struggling to maintain its poll ratings, teetering on the edge of the five percent hurdle in opinion polls. (FDP, Traffic light coalition, dissatisfaction)

Source: www.ntv.de