When German Finance Minister Christian Lindner was asked this year where he sits on the “government boat” – in the middle, at the stern or on the lower deck — he didn’t hesitate: “At the helm.”
The leader of the business-friendly Free Democrats, or FDP, has been at the forefront of infighting within Berlin’s three-way governing coalition. His policy wins have enraged his Green party partners on issues including fossil-fuel heating, combustion-engine cars, and cutting funding in their ministries.
The question of how far to indulge Lindner’s love of the spotlight and whether to change tack is becoming a potentially decisive issue for the chancellor. Yet as Scholz struggles to persuade Germans he can solve problems ranging from slumping industry, high energy costs and urgent defense needs to the AfD’s resurgence, his finance chief knows he has leverage until the general election due in the fall of 2025.
That sort of talk has so far failed to stop voters drifting to the anti-migrant group, whose popularity has leapfrogged that of the SPD as public discontent simmers over inflation, record immigration and costly environmental measures. “I would have hoped that the coalition partners would pool their strengths,” she said. “The constant confrontation — from all sides, by the way — is not conducive to increasing the coalition’s popularity.”
While Lindner says he’s focused on the next general election, he’s determined to do better in state votes. Having taken over a defeated FDP a decade ago that had failed to secure any seats in Germany’s Bundestag for the first time in its history, a string of regional election losses since joining the coalition at the end of 2021 raised the specter of becoming irrelevant again.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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