Analysis by researchers: traffic lights “successfully failed”

Before the Federal Government starts, the Bertelsmann Foundation expresses doubts as to whether black and red will be more successful than the traffic light after analyzing the coalition agreement. It is questionable whether the new government had drawn the teachings from the traffic -political failure of the traffic light, according to a paper by political scientist Robert Vehrkamp and political scientist Theres Matthieß. The analysis is available in advance for the German Press Agency and will be published on Monday.

“On the one hand, the new coalition agreement is less ambitious and less clear than the coalition contract of the traffic lights,” says the paper. In addition, the new coalition will discuss the interpretation of central passages before it took office. The authors certify that the traffic lights from the SPD, the Greens and the FDP have “successfully failed”. It was checked which projects were implemented from the traffic light coalition agreement during the reign and how black-red under the future Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) wants to tackle the matter.

The Bertelsmann Foundation draws an ambiguous balance to the traffic light government. With 52 percent, only a little more than half of the government projects were implemented from the coalition agreement. But: According to the Bertelsmann examination, the traffic lights were more successful in three years than the predecessors of the CDU and SPD in four years. Therefore, the traffic light is more than a failed dispute coalition.

The traffic light contract of 2021 had listed 453 promises. According to the analysis, this is about 50 percent more than the coalition agreement of 2018 and two and a half times as much as in 2013 – at that time it was about black and red coalitions. The traffic light has implemented 236 projects – 45 percent of them complete and 7 percent partially. When the traffic light was broken, 98 projects were still in implementation. With 118 promises there was no start of implementation.

“The traffic lights have failed on its self -made high standards. After the two predecessor governments have each implemented almost 80 percent of their promises, the traffic light balance with only half of the promises implemented is much worse,” says the paper of the Bertelsmann Foundation. “Nevertheless, in absolute numbers, she even implemented a little more (plus 7) than her predecessor and significantly more (plus 88) than her previous government.”

The new coalition agreement of black and red under the future Chancellor Merz is more similar to the “incomplete contract” of the black and yellow government coalition from 2009 to 2013 than the coalition agreement of the traffic lights. That is “not a good omen for the performance of the new government,” it said.