FDP and coalition break: FDP gets into turbulence because of the traffic light exit strategy

The FDP’s detailed script for exiting the traffic lights is causing waves of outrage. And not only that. Secretary General Bijan Djir-Sarai and Federal Managing Director Carsten Reymann are resigning. Around a quarter of a year before the planned election date, this is a medium-sized catastrophe for the FDP and its chairman Christian Lindner. What’s next?

What led to the resignations?

The strategy paper refers several times to “D-Day” as the day when the traffic light coalition is left. Djir-Sarai emphasized on November 18th, with a view to media reports at the time about the “D-Day” formulation: “That’s not true. This term was not used.” This contradiction raised the question of whether the Secretary General was lying. In his statement at the Hans-Dietrich-Genscher-Haus he said: “I unknowingly provided incorrect information about an internal document.” He himself had “no knowledge” of this paper. He takes political responsibility for this.

Federal Managing Director Reymann had revealed himself as the author of the strategy paper the day before. “The document is a working paper that the federal executive director created for the first time on October 24, 2024 at 3:38 p.m.,” he wrote in a statement. Reymann justified his request to Lindner to resign by saying that he “would like to enable the party’s personnel to be reorganized in the Hans Dietrich Genscher House.”

What does party leader Lindner say?

Lindner was at the diving station on Friday. Then, in a written statement about the paper and its consequences, he first washed his hands of it (“I did not take note of it and would not have approved of it.”) and then immediately attacked the ex-coalition partners again: “It was express and “It is no secret that the FDP would of course have had to leave the government without an economic turnaround, without a budget with a debt brake and without consistency in migration policy.” Because: “We could not have expected the country to have a standstill traffic light without a change in policy until the end of the electoral period.”

Did the FDP leadership really know nothing about the paper?

The FDP leadership states that they were not aware of the controversial paper. In his statement, Federal Managing Director Reymann wrote: “This technical paper was not the subject of political advice from elected officials and government members, but rather a purely internal preparation for the scenario of the FDP leaving the traffic light coalition.”

But is that credible? Reymann has only been federal manager since March 1st. Before that, he first worked as Lindner’s office manager in the Bundestag and then in the management staff of the Federal Ministry of Finance. So he is a close confidante of Lindner. It’s hard to imagine that he didn’t talk to his boss about the scenario he developed.

What does all this mean for the election campaign and the FDP’s electoral chances?

The excitement over the paper and the resignations will not make the election campaign any easier for the FDP. It is quite possible that the election campaigners will be asked critical questions at the stands in the city centers. The general secretary and the federal manager of a party are also the core of every election campaign team. The fact that Djir-Sarai and Reymann are now missing is even more serious given the shortness of the election campaign.

The Liberals’ election chances are unlikely to improve as a result of the turbulence. They are currently at 3 to 4 percent in the surveys – and are therefore a long way from the critical five percent hurdle and miles away from the 11.5 percent in the 2021 federal election.

Who will succeed Djir-Sarai and Reymann?

What will be particularly interesting will be who will be the new FDP General Secretary. The first things that come to mind are the ministers Marco Buschmann and Bettina Stark-Watzinger, who resigned after Lindner’s expulsion. They both have time now. From the Bundestag faction, Johannes Vogel and Konstantin Kuhle, for example, would be possible. Both are Lindner confidants, which is a kind of hiring requirement for a general secretary. One thing is also clear: calf-biting qualities are required in this position, especially during election campaigns. Anyone who takes on this job must be proficient in the attack department.

Will the paper have further personnel consequences?

Further personnel consequences would have to affect party leader Lindner himself, but he is making no move to give up his office. This would ultimately plunge his party into chaos. Because in recent years he has managed to make himself the sole ruler of the FDP, so to speak. At first glance, there is no possible successor in sight for him. So far, even after the series of FDP bankruptcies in the last state elections, there has been no public criticism of Lindner. So he is pretty confidently at the head of the party.

Why is the paper so sensitive?

Since the traffic light broke, those involved have been fighting for the authority to interpret who is responsible for the failure. Immediately after his ouster as Federal Finance Minister, Lindner accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of “a calculated breach of this coalition”. The paper now shows this in a completely different light.

In addition to the content, it is also about the choice of words and style. The term “D-Day” appears several times in the document – the name for the day of the Allied landings in Normandy. This marked the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe from the troops of Nazi Germany in the summer of 1944. Tens of thousands of Allied and German soldiers and civilians died in the fighting.

The phrase “beginning of the open field battle”, which is used in the paper to describe Phase IV of the “D-Day process pyramid”, also sounds as if the FDP wanted to go to war – against those with whom they were at the time, as the concept emerged, was still connected in a coalition.