Black-red coalition: Why chatting is a bad sign

It recently rushed in the black and red coalition for the first time. In the dispute over the lowering of electricity tax, the center of power was not only lacking money, but also in organization, communication – and to Thorsten Frei, the head of the chancellor. Friedrich Merz and his finance minister Lars Klingbeil had made an appointment, but especially forgot to inform important coalitioners on the Union side and, even more dangerous, those that consider themselves important.

The coalition committee, which had to clear the topic, was under pressure. Through the headings in the media, traffic lights already flashed. Of all things, the named Thorsten was missing because of a lecture at the Sparkasse in his home country.

The session took a long time. The result – tax cut for everyone – was by no means convincing and will probably not survive the parliamentary process. But for the time being, you don’t have to worry about the coalition. There is nothing. There is an unmistakable indication for this: secrecy.

Five hours of debate, eleven participants, and there is hardly anything to the outside. In any case, I have never heard of a toxic dialogue, read about a funny change of words, about blame or excuses. Instead, everyone involved defended the inadequate result – even Markus Söder, because the CDU and SPD had paid him an earlier increase in his mother’s pension as a hott money.

Merz can count himself lucky about so much discipline. When Angela Merkel led her first grand coalition through the rapids of the beginnings, things were different. At that time, the SPD still suffered from the loss of the Chancellery. And her parliamentary group leader Peter Struck put this into the words in early summer 2006: “Gerhard Schröder as a social democrat would always be my lover chancellor. Honestly: You can’t even imagine that SPD boss Lars Klingbeil or the group leader Matthias Miersch talked so kind about the three-year Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In any case, Merkel was angry about Struck’s nickneness at the time. In the coalition committee, she complained that one could not work. Struck defended his statements and explained that he had to keep his people happy until Merkel clashed him with the words: “This is afraid for me.” A sentence that soon found his way outside.

The little story shows that Merkel initially had much more difficult to enforce their authority compared to the SPD than Merz today with what is left of the SPD. The coalition at the time was born out of necessity. That is also today, but the need is significantly larger and according to the cohesion. At least so far.

A year and a half later Peter Struck told Merkel’s many trips abroad. She countered in the coalition committee by threatening the Social Democrat that she would now be so much in Germany that the SPD politician would long for her travels.

If such a mess as with the electricity tax becomes the rule, at least this change of word between Merz and the SPD could be repeated one day. Hopefully at least the Chancellor’s head will be there.