The unusual combination of social democrats, environmentalists and liberals that came to power in Germany after the 2021 elections celebrates two years as a coalition government today, and is immersed in the task of fixing the budget mess unleashed after an adverse ruling by the Constitutional Court. “However, this is not a crisis,” the Finance Minister, the liberal Christian Lindner, said yesterday in Brussels, given the prospect that there will not be time to approve the 2024 budget in Parliament and the process will move to January. “I realize that coalition partners have ambitious timetables,” he added.
The phrase illustrates the tone that has accompanied the tripartite led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz since his inauguration on December 8, 2021, that is, the internal struggles between the three parties. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the energy crisis and inflation forced social democrats, greens and liberals to tweak or postpone plans, amid usual tensions, also evident in public.
Still, according to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the coalition has fulfilled or implemented almost two-thirds of the promises it made two years ago. Those responsible for the study analyzed 453 promises on major and minor issues, from raising the minimum wage to 12 euros gross per hour (previously it was 9.6 euros), child allowance or the reform of unemployment benefits, to the simplification of procedures to obtain nationality or border control of irregular immigration, and they concluded that the balance is positive.
However, citizens do not see it that way. The polls are merciless with the three government parties, giving first place in preferences to the conservative CDU/CSU union (30%) and the far-right AfD (22%). Next are the social democratic SPD (16%), the Greens (15%) and the liberal FDP (6%). The leftist Die Linke – which has just suffered a split – has 4%, which would lead it to lose parliamentary representation by not reaching the minimum 5% necessary. If elections were held now, the ruling coalition would not obtain a sufficient majority.
“Overall, it is a very promising midterm balance, but it is overshadowed by public disputes and many unresolved issues,” argues economist Robert Vehrkamp, ??one of the researchers of Bertelsmann’s study. The scrutiny of promises was accompanied by a survey by the Allensbach Institute to gauge public perception. Only 12% of respondents said they believe that “all, almost all or a large part” of the Government’s initial plans will be completed, and 43% said they expect that only “a small part or almost nothing” will be implemented.
To improve its pull among voters ahead of the 2025 autumn elections, the Government should encourage internal cooperation and sell itself better in its communication to society, according to Wolfgang Schröder, political scientist at the Das Progressive Zentrum think tank, also a participant in Bertelsmann’s study. “Disputes within the coalition, when staged publicly, lead people to underestimate the real work of the government,” argues Schröder.
This is the case now with the budget mess. In November, a ruling by the TC declared unconstitutional the reallocation of 60,000 million of extraordinary debt from the 2021 budget against the economic impact of covid to a fund for climate and transformation of the 2022 budgets.
The high court said that the Executive had violated the constitutional debt brake rule (introduced in 2009, it limits new public debt to 0.35% of annual GDP and can only be suspended in case of emergency), by not properly justifying the emergence of the new situation. The brake was suspended between 2020 and 2022 due to the pandemic, and this year it was in force again, but the Government has now approved suspending the debt brake for the fourth time.
On the rebound, the coalition is now struggling to balance the 2024 budget. The environmentalists want to save investments, the liberals preach budgetary rigor, Scholz puts himself in profile, and citizens distrust the tensions.
