Germany’s liberal FDP party is taking an increasingly confrontational stance on the economic policies of the three-way coalition government in which it is a junior partner, saying it has more in common with the conservative opposition.
The FDP (Renew) is the junior partner in the coalition between the Social Democrats (SPD/S&D) and the Greens and is increasingly unhappy with the government’s policies, especially on the economy – a sentiment most recently expressed by FDP secretary-general Bijan Djir-Sarai, who on Monday criticised Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck.
“If the Minister for Economic Affairs is of the opinion […] we are now […] running up debts to try to then artificially boost the economy through subsidies, then in my view that is clearly the wrong way to go,” Djir-Sarai stressed.
Adherence to the constitutional debt brake, which stipulates that the government cannot incur new debt exceeding 0.35% of nominal GDP per year, was one of the FDP’s most prominent election promises and represents a red line for the party.
Already this weekend, Bijan Djir-Sarai said he would prefer to work with the conservative opposition party CDU, as there would be more overlap in various policy areas.
In an interview with Bild am Sonntag, Djir-Sarai openly stated that he was “firmly convinced that a coalition of CDU, CSU and FDP would not only be able to analyse the country’s problems together but would actually be able to find solutions together”.
“If we have no economic foundation in Germany, we will fail in all policy areas. In the coming weeks, it will be extremely important for me to see what conclusions the other coalition partners draw from this,” Djir-Sarai warned his coalition partners.
In addition, on 11 February, party leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner told ZDF television that “the FDP suffers in particular from the fact that [it] belongs to a very unpopular government”.
The three-party government has been slipping in the polls for months, with the FDP particularly unpopular, polling at 4%, down from 11.4% in the election that gave it a place in the coalition.
The upcoming European elections in June could be seen as a crucial test for the ruling coalition, and an unsatisfactory result could prompt the Liberals to leave the government.
(Kjeld Neubert | Euractiv.de)
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Source: euractiv.com
