The Ukraine war changes the world. But while the SPD and the Greens say goodbye to the dreams of the past, the FDP is racing further into the past. More cars, more concrete, less taxes. The party leaders do not understand that the voters are punishing them for this. An appeal for more professionalism.
Old can be surprisingly modern. Just think of Michael Gorbachev. Well, the man polarized throughout his life; for us he was a hero because he brought unity, for the Russians a gravedigger because he buried the Soviet Union. But Gorbachev is modern, he left a sentence for eternity: “He who comes too late will be punished by life.”
The sentence also applies in 2023, in its new form it is called “Zeitenwende”. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything. “The world after is no longer the same as the world before,” said Olaf Scholz a year ago. We will have to change to survive in this new world or we will be punished. It is really easy. Actually.
It’s just stupid that not everyone wants to participate in this change.
For example the FDP.
The SPD has begun to say goodbye to its Ostpolitik and love of Russia. The comrades suffer, but they try anyway. The Greens have mothballed their pacifism, some so brash that when they talk about guns today, they sound like a Rheinmetall salesman. The party also doesn’t want to get out of coal any longer so quickly. Its most important minister, Robert Habeck, plays the international gas trader who also builds liquefied gas terminals on the side. Even if the nuclear reactors run a bit longer, the Greens no longer talk about it apocalypse.
Where are the professionals of the FDP?
And the FDP? Fight for tax cuts and against a speed limit. Adaptation to the new time? Don’t. The party interprets John F. Kennedy’s famous saying: “Don’t ask what you can do for your country. Instead, ask what you can do for your clientele.”
Do you remember how Christian Lindner criticized the “climate activists” from “Fridays for Future” some time ago? The young people should rather leave it alone and let the “professionals” do it. Really?
Where are the professionals of the FDP? I mean politicians who react to the new situation with expertise. There is no one in the liberally governed ministries.
We are witnessing a transport minister, Volker Wissing (“driving a car means freedom”), who wants to build even more roads, as if this country were a desert state and did not already have over 830,000 kilometers of road network. He doesn’t think much of 30 km/h zones, he can’t think of any ideas to curb traffic, and if he suggests something, experts see little point in it. And nobody knows how he intends to meet the climate targets for traffic (by 2030 half as many emissions as in 2019). Wissing is fighting for new fuels such as e-fuels so that petrol and diesel engines continue to stink on the streets after 2035.
We see a Minister of Education, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, who believes in the imminent breakthrough of fusion energy, although reputable experts speak of decades before the first fusion reactors run, if they ever run at all. The students still don’t have the energy allowance of 200 euros that the state has been promising for months, so a group of 85 (!) experts meets twice a week.
We are witnessing a Bundestag Vice-President, Wolfgang Kubicki, who recommends that Economics Minister Robert Habeck “lie hacked down”, who wants to open the Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2 in the middle of the Ukraine war and who calls the Health Minister a “spacker” and suggests that he resign .
FDP doubts the expertise of its own minister
We see Justice Minister Marco Buschmann fighting a month-long feud with Karl Lauterbach over the question: “Who is the biggest boss at traffic lights?” Until in the end everyone is just confused.
We are witnessing a government faction of the FDP that doubts the expertise of its own transport minister. Because she doesn’t like a report from the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) on the speed limit, she commissions a counter-report. The UBA report was written by a scientist who at the same time heads Wissing’s expert council and whom Wissing otherwise praises. So it’s not surprising that FDP MPs call Habeck’s plans for gas heating “scrapping orgy” and the Ministry of Economic Affairs a “madhouse”.
And we experience a Minister of Finance who writes greetings for his house bank, which has provided him with a real estate loan. What he wants is unclear, sometimes before the NRW elections he hastily proposes lowering the real estate transfer tax in order to then let the plan disappear in the drawer, sometimes he wants to introduce a tax FBI and does not pursue the idea any further. In Mali he visits the Bundeswehr, but at home ignores the plight of the long-term care insurance (fewer and fewer home residents can pay the average personal contribution of 2,000 euros). To this end, he wants to lower taxes for the rich and companies, squander billions on a stock pension that helps neither pensioners nor employees. Even the liberal “Handelsblatt” considers Lindner to be “fickle” because “announcements are not followed by actions”.
That happens when professionals from the FDP govern.
“Cucumber Squad” and “Wild Boar”
The performance of the Liberals is so poor that even the former black-yellow coalition of Guido Westerwelle and Angela Merkel is really beaming. Do you remember? That was the alliance where those involved addressed each other as “cucumber troops” and “wild boar”. But at that time, for example, a liberal health minister pushed through an austerity law against the pharmaceutical industry, and thus also against his own constituency.
Today the FDP cannot even sell its successes. And she has. Volker Wissing came up with the idea that thanks to the 9-euro ticket and its successors, we can all travel cheaper and better with buses and trains. Did you know?
Or that Justice Minister Buschmann has enforced liberal law and abolished the so-called advertising ban on abortion. Transgender and non-binary people should be given more rights, right-wing populists should not be allowed to infiltrate the courts and apply for jury duty.
Or that Minister of Education Stark-Watzinger increased and expanded the Bafög so that more young people are better supported.
Even Lindner, who mainly reaped headlines with his wedding and his rise to the kale king, which he himself considers the “highlight of his career”, made a sensible decision. Thanks to him, higher salaries are not taxed away because he adjusted the income tax rates, and the fact that many Germans can cope reasonably well with inflation and a lack of gas is also due to the state aid, which Lindner helped to decide (yes, I know that the tank discount was not a good idea , but let’s not be petty now).
FDP is an antique store
“We need a higher pace of innovation at all levels,” says Marco Buschmann. He’s right. Above all, I would like to see more pace of innovation in the FDP. Liberalism is more than tax cuts and BKT (“Just no speed limit”). Liberalism is convincing when it comes to protecting citizens from the unreasonable demands of the state and Internet companies. Liberalism is attractive when it enables people to lead a good life without dad bequeathing a factory or at least a condominium to his daughter. And liberalism is necessary when redefining freedom in times of climate change. How is the individual supposed to live self-determined when the sweltering heat dries up the head, there is no water and the animals are extinct? What we don’t need is a liberalism that creates a biotope for egoists, where the following applies: “Everything for me, nothing for the others.”
The FDP is an antique shop. All sorts of bric-a-brac are lying around there, the owner thinks he only has to dust off the junk and the customers will rush him into the booth. No, Mr. Lindner, you must change the offer. That’s how it is in the market economy. Every entrepreneur who loses customers has to review his product, his offer, otherwise he will go under. This is a turning point, you have to live it and not just talk about it.
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The FDP has suffered five defeats in a row since the 2021 federal elections, it was kicked out of the government in two countries and out of parliament in three, and in the Berlin election it even suffered the heaviest loss of all parties as an opposition party. She wasn’t sitting in the Red Town Hall and was still punished, it couldn’t be worse. The message from the liberal clientele is urgent: FDP changes you. Otherwise life will punish you at some point.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
