Louis Klamroth was about political style, economic crisis, electric cars, debt brake – and Gregor Gysi had some advice on how to deal with the AfD.
“Politics in a crisis of trust – who has the plan for Germany now?” was the theme of the last “Hard but Fair” issue before the Christmas break. Moderator Louis Klamroth spoke of a “historic day” in view of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's planned loss of confidence – and first talked about the previous heated debate in the Bundestag. He turned to journalist Melanie Amann to find out whether this was a foretaste of the election campaign that was about to begin. The deputy editor-in-chief of “Spiegel” affirmed and criticized the acrimony of the argument: “If Scholz denies Lindner’s moral maturity, that is brutal and inappropriate.”
- Saskia Esken (SPD), party leader
- Reiner Haseloff (CDU), Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt
- Christian Dürr (FDP), parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag
- Svenja Bolldorf, employee at Ford in Cologne
- Gregor Gysi (The Left), member of the Bundestag
- Melanie Amann, deputy editor-in-chief of “Der Spiegel”
Christian Dürr and Reiner Haseloff saw it similarly. The FDP parliamentary group leader welcomed the “chance to make differences visible”, but called for “mutually distributing top notes” to be stopped. If a coalition fails, everyone is partly to blame. “There are also limits in this high house,” agreed the CDU Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt and added with regard to Scholz’s choice of words: “You don’t follow suit like that.”
Saskia Esken, however, defended the Chancellor's speech as a “description of reality”. The SPD co-chairwoman accused the FDP of breach of trust and igniting: “A game has been played for a long time.”
Left veteran Gregor Gysi is calling for a “discussion group of all democratic parties” to answer the question “why established politics from the CSU to the Left have lost so much of their reputation”.
In order to include a citizen affected by the current economic crisis in the discussion, the “Hart aber fair” editorial team invited Ford employee Svenja Bolldorf from Cologne – and in doing so did not make a particularly convincing move. The IT specialist was eloquent and complained about the “incredible uncertainty” among the workforce in view of the planned job cuts in her company. But she had to admit that her own job was secure until 2032, which made her needs seem less urgent. Nevertheless, in view of the “massive transformation” in which her industry is undergoing, she is calling for government investment in the charging infrastructure for e-mobility and a cap on industrial electricity prices.
After all, the different approaches of the parties when it came to the automotive industry became clear. While Saskia Esken spoke out in favor of government support for the sale of German electric cars through a “Made in Germany” premium, FDP man Dürr was skeptical about this. He raised the question of whether such a measure would actually be “compliant with European law” and was of the opinion that it was generally about “competitiveness”.
Reiner Haseloff saw “global overcapacity” on the car market and confirmed that politicians had made the decision to phase out combustion engines “without the reaction of the people” who had to buy and decide. “The timing for this mobility sector has simply been planned out.” He saw parallels to the heating law. When Gregor Gysi, like Esken, spoke out in favor of state investments, the debt brake discussion was not far away.
It is a mistake in the current regulation that it treats “consumptive and investment expenditure” equally, explained the reform supporter Saskia Esken and, to illustrate the point, brought up the proverbial Swabian housewife: She would never fill the refrigerator with credit funds, but certainly not that either Let the house rot “when it rains through the roof”.
Reiner Haseloff, on the other hand, did not see a reform of the debt brake as “the first issue”. The CDU Prime Minister freely admitted that he had just applied for another financial emergency for his state in order to be able to take out further loans bypassing the debt brake. At the federal level, however, he suggested that the “outflow” of citizens’ money should first be stopped. Christian Dürr pointed out that massive investments were possible even while complying with the debt brake.
