A traffic light: Volker Wissing gives Lindner to blame for the coalition break

Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (non-party) follows up again and blames FDP boss Christian Lindner-after the end of the coalition negotiations-for the failure of the traffic light coalition.

He was “convinced that this coalition could have continued if you had wanted it,” said Wissing to the newspapers of the Funke media group on Thursday. But it was exactly the other way around: “You didn’t want to externally end these arguments.”

At the end of the traffic light, Wissing continued: “It was always clear to me that it could end and that the probability is great that it will end. But it was talking like there was nothing to be done.”

The FDP parliamentary group was also “totally enthusiastic about this we-criticizing the green”. This was “a hype”.

Anyone who opposed this in the FDP and advertised for constructive compromises was considered internally “as a green man understander or somehow as a friend of the SPD”. “No, that shouldn’t be, and that was very, very exhausting for me and I also got a lot of criticism because I kept trying to rule consensus,” said Wissing disappointed.

He personally attributed this destructive attitude back to Lindner: “So, I think Lindner was always afraid that if we are too constructive, that the FDP is no longer existent or greened or now on the left or something”. ” However, he himself was “a little more optimistic and not so scared”.

He has not had direct contact with Lindner since then from the traffic light. The last conversation took place on November 6 of last year, shortly before Lindner’s dismissal as Minister of Finance by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Wissing left the FDP as a result of the traffic light break.

The coalition also “made our democracy poorer,” said Wissing. “She has become poorer because we can no longer make alliances like traffic lights or Jamaica.” In addition, a liberal force in the German Bundestag is now missing “which could be used well at such times”.

Wissing emphasized that the FDP’s failure at the five percent hurdle also regretted. It is also a “sad story for him that such a pile of broken glass has been served”. He rejected allegations of betrayal from the ranks of his former party. On the certificate with which the minister would be appointed, “is not a non -party logo, but the federal eagle, and the certificate is not signed by the party leader, but by the Federal President – and there is a reason,” he clarified.

Before the time of the traffic lights, he worked well with Lindner, Wissing said, but there was “no private friendship” between them. In the time of the common government, it became more difficult.

Wissing, on the other hand, expressly praised the cooperation with Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Greens). “I think it was always possible with him to negotiate compromises,” he said. There was a “very beautiful, also humanly pleasant way of dealing with each other”, and together they “could often have problems clearing up problems within minutes”.