German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called a meeting of his ruling coalition on Sunday evening to try to ease tensions between his government partners.

The conflicts of late between FDP liberals, environmentalists and the Chancellor’s Social Democrats who form the ruling coalition have multiplied: they range from the climate to funding for the rearmament of the German army, from transport infrastructure to the 2024 budget.

The mutual and growing loss of trust between the three partners is now a concern, in addition to delaying important plans for Europe’s largest economy.

“There is fire everywhere you look,” Der Spiegel summed up, documenting “differences over priorities,” “cross-blaming everything,” and an inability to “compromise.”

“Coalition house on fire,” the tabloid Bild headlined.

Internal tensions spilled over to Brussels, where Berlin, to the dismay of its partners, blocked at the last minute a regulation to cut CO2 emissions from new cars sold in the EU to zero.

A compromise solution was finally found on Saturday.

On Sunday evening the enterprise looked like collective psychotherapy three-party coalition unprecedented in Germany. The results are expected no earlier than Monday.

“Citizens expect the coalition to get results,” warned Social Democrat spokesman Dirk Wiese in an interview with Spiegel.

The aim was to restore order and stop the free fall in popularity of the coalition parties, as the main right opposition is now way ahead in virtually all opinion polls, while the AfD (the far right) is considered the third party in many polls. investigations.

Liberals run the Treasury and see themselves as the guarantors of fiscal discipline. Christoph Meyer, spokesman for the FDP, accused the other two coalition parties of being “addicted to public spending”, speaking in Funke’s group newspapers. “Sometimes you have to take the bottle out of an alcoholic’s mouth,” he said.

Environmental issues

On the climate front, the Greens and the FDP have been open about their differences for weeks now—over internal combustion engines in cars, phasing out oil and gas burners, prioritizing investment in railroads or highways. …

The gunpowder was set on fire by Economy and Climate Minister Robert Hambeck. “Only one party represents progress, the rest hinder it,” the deputy commander lashed out at government ranks on Tuesday.

The PhD holder accused the government of not fulfilling “properly” the government’s mission to “do something for the world, for Germany” and for the climate.

The country has met its 2022 CO2 cap target – due in part to the energy crisis – but it still has a long way to go if it wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2045.

Mr. Hambeck accused his liberal partners, in particular, of stalling his leaked plan to ban new oil- or gas-fired boilers in buildings as early as 2024.

Tensions escalated to the point that FDP Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki went so far as to say, before apologizing, that Mr. Habek shares with Russian President Vladimir Putin “the belief that the state, the leader, the elected know best, than to the people what is best for them.”

The SPD claims to be restoring calm. But a chancellor with a reputation for putting setbacks aside rather than facing them, a year and a half after taking office, seems unable to control his increasingly nervous associates.

“Leadership is needed more than ever, and Olaf Solz doesn’t show it, he lets things happen,” Carsten Linnemann of the Right Opposition quipped.

Source: RES-IPE