A twice in one week, Germany took its European partners by surprise. On 7 March, its transport minister, Volker Wissing, announced that he would not vote as it stood on a legislative proposal banning new vehicles with internal combustion engines from 2035, although an agreement had been reached between the Twenty-Seven and Brussels after long negotiations. On March 14, his colleague in charge of finance, Christian Lindner, demanded the modification of a text on the next reform of the stability and growth pact, which limits the public deficit and debt to respectively 3% and 60% of the product raw interior. Here too, the German volte-face was all the more surprising since the text had been fixed upstream and Berlin had found nothing to complain about.
MM. Lindner and Wissing are members of the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) – the former is even its chairman – and that is important. Partners of the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens in the “traffic light” coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), the Liberals derive little benefit from their participation in the federal government. Since they entered it in December 2021, they have suffered heavy setbacks in all the intermediate elections. The fact that their ministers distinguish themselves in Brussels by championing cars and budgetary orthodoxy – two themes dear to FDP voters – is undoubtedly not unrelated to the difficulties their party is going through. But their behavior tarnishes Germany’s image, reinforcing the increasingly numerous criticisms in the European Union against a country whose political line is difficult to read and whose positions seem to vary according to chicayas who shake up his fragile coalition.
It’s no wonder it’s hard to maneuver. Unprecedented in its tripartite composition, the German government is all the more sensitive to ups and downs as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 largely rendered null and void the “coalition contract” signed two and a half months earlier by the SPD, the Greens and the FDP. This war severely tested the alliance formed by these three parties, confronted with their contradictions on subjects as fundamental as the delivery of arms, the future of nuclear power plants or the fight against inflation.
In themselves, the debates which agitate the majority led by Olaf Scholz are not unhealthy. They are the sign of a democratic and parliamentary vitality of which other countries should be envious, starting with France. But to govern is also to decide. And, when the decisions are made, stick to them.
On this point, Angela Merkel’s successor has yet to prove himself. A tight-lipped Chancellor at the head of a noisy coalition, he struggles to set a clear course for his policy and is regularly overwhelmed by his ministers, of whom it is not always easy to know whether they are speaking on behalf of their party or from their country. His frequent differences with his foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock (Greens), sow confusion among their foreign interlocutors. “Europe is the most important national issue for us in Germany”, assured Olaf Scholz, on March 5, at the end of a government seminar at the castle of Meseberg, near Berlin, intended to put oil in the wheels of his team. It is now up to him to prove this to his European partners.