Beak round in the Chancellery: SPD boss Esken preferably at the table on the left outside

The SPD chairman Saskia Esken measures a photo from the Chancellery that caused irritation on social media. Chancellor Olaf Scholz advised on Wednesday with CDU boss Friedrich Merz, the SPD bosses Esken and Lars Klingbeil and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt. Esken was sitting on the left, on social media it had been made, they were sitting offside, while four men were in a lively conversation.

“I always look for the space on the left, even in talk shows or at press conferences,” said Esken “Stern” magazine. “Because I only hear on my right ear,” she explained as a reason. She is deaf on the left ear. As a child, she had an inflammation of the meningitis, the auditory nerve had died.

The place on the left edge enables her to hear all interlocutors well, said the SPD leader. “If the number of conversation partners is odd, such a seating arrangement results.” Esken emphasized: “When it comes to the question of whether I am involved in this round, it didn’t matter. I am already making sure that I am listening.”

Excitement video between Scholz and Esken from the Bundestag

A scene from the Bundestag between Scholz and Esken caused excitement on social media in December. A short video that was recorded after the vote on the question of trust shows how the Chancellor has talked to SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich. Esken is added, Scholz looks at her briefly – then to turn off without comment and to leave it. Eask is spreading out of their hands – as if she wants to say: What was that now?

Esken later said in a dpa video interview about the scene that after the speech, Scholz may have been “in a kind of tunnel”. “Olaf Scholz apologized very warmly and extensively with me and it is also done for me,” she said.