One wants to become chancellor, the other at least wants to be a candidate for chancellor. One is accused of copying his political recipes from the past, the other of overtaxing the population with his plans for the future. We are talking about CDU leader Friedrich Merz and the Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck.
On Thursday evening, the two met on Maybrit Illner’s talk show of the same name on ZDF. This kind of format is called a TV duel. It was more of an appointment to measure distances. Even before the broadcast began, it was clear that the political distance between the CDU and the Greens had not been as great for a long time as it is today.
The CDU is still in coalition with the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg, but the move away is very clear. In Berlin, there were no negotiations about a black-green coalition after the election to the House of Representatives, and in Hesse the CDU dumped the Greens last autumn after ten years of coalition.
A year ago, Merz called the Greens the “main opponent” of the CDU and CSU faction in the traffic light coalition. In February, however, he again described an alliance with them as “conceivable”. He and the CDU are meandering along the issue, but the stocks for the black-green coalition are generally falling. Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU), who governs his state with the Greens and the SPD, recently kept his distance in an interview with WELT AM SONNTAG. “Our goal must be to form a government without the Greens,” he said. This applies both in Saxony and at the federal level.
Do they have anything else to say to each other other than mutual insults and accusations? In the 65 minutes or so, presenter Illner works her way through several topics: energy policy, the war in Ukraine, migration, the economy. And a bit of coming to terms with the past at the beginning: Did the previous CDU-led federal government also make mistakes, for example in its dependence on Russian gas?
“This dependence was wrong,” says Merz, but he thinks an apology for this policy is exaggerated. “Everyone misjudged the situation.” Everyone? No, counters Habeck, “there were endless warnings,” he says, especially from abroad, “but these warnings were ignored.”
The Union wants to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the nuclear phase-out in a committee of inquiry, or more precisely: the decision-making process in Habeck’s ministry. This is accompanied by the accusation that Habeck ultimately made a decision based on party politics rather than on technical issues, ignoring warnings. Merz wants to know what influence the Green Party had on the ministry at the time.
The Minister of Economic Affairs reacted calmly to Merz’s allegations and countered with a request for clarification: He would like to see an investigation into who was responsible for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline – and who thus drove the German economy into dependence on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Germany took a wrong turn with its Russia orientation at the time, and that was the Union’s fault. The Greens were always against Nord Stream 2.
So everyone wants to clarify what is of use to them at the moment, and after a quarter of an hour it is a tie. The tone of the opponents in the TV studio is not nearly as sharp as on the election campaign stages or sometimes in the Bundestag. Merz reminds us that Nord Stream 1 was a decision made by the red-green Schröder/Fischer government, while Habeck counters that the nuclear phase-out after Fukushima in 2011 was decided by the then black-yellow Merkel government. So everyone has skeletons in the closet.
Changing the subject, now it’s about Ukraine. There is absolutely no sign of conflict here. “We have to help Ukraine,” says Merz, the only person who is happy about the dispute in the government or with the opposition is Putin. “We are very close to each other here,” emphasizes Habeck.
And Merz says a few minutes later: “Robert Habeck has just described it correctly.” Putin wants to re-measure the map, warns Merz, and on the question of aid for Ukraine “we agree with the Greens and the FDP.” If Merz and Habeck were not in the TV studio but at exploratory talks, both could now put a big tick on the negotiating paper.
Then there is the fatal knife attack on a police officer in Mannheim, which could mark a turning point in deportation policy in the near future. The alleged Islamist attack by an Afghan has become a symbol of a migration policy that has long since gotten out of hand. This morning, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced a change of course and with it the deportation of criminals to Afghanistan and Syria – can we believe that, Mr Merz?
The pleasant-sounding formulations must finally be followed by actions, the number of deportations is still far too low, although the Chancellor announced tough measures last year, says Merz. Then Habeck speaks.
He calls the knife attack a “bestial act” and says that anyone who does this “must leave the country” after serving their sentence. However, Habeck points out the “small print” in this context. The lack of papers, which makes deportations legally difficult. The countries of origin that do not take back their criminals.
Nevertheless, he does not ramble around like some of his party colleagues, who always start by explaining what is not allowed on this topic. “Anyone who fundamentally violates the rules” must leave Germany, says Habeck.
Merz stresses that, when in doubt, the legal basis must be created to make deportations more successful. No objection from Habeck. He stresses that the deportation issue is not the hammer for all the nails that need to be hammered in. No objection from the other side. Leitkultur? “The Basic Law is my Leitkultur,” says Habeck. Merz cannot, of course, disagree with that.
There suddenly seems to be some room for maneuver on this controversial issue, which is otherwise characterized by black-green tensions; in any case, the mutual suspicions and accusations that are otherwise so common have largely disappeared.
In exploratory talks, one would now go into greater detail, but we are on television, the next topic is pressing, Merz has already called for a discussion on economic policy.
The situation was bad last year, and Habeck repeatedly attributes the crisis to the gas problem. “We have made the situation manageable,” he says in modern German, meaning manageable. Germany is more dependent on foreign trade than almost any other country, the economy is short of at least 700,000 skilled workers, and the number of unreported cases is probably two million. “This government has started to pull the cart out of the mud,” says Habeck.
Now things are getting really controversial. “You’re really driving the cart into the ground!” says Merz. “You don’t know what to do!” Instead of dealing with the problems, “you’ve bothered the nation with your botched heating law,” rages the opposition leader. This economic policy is a complete disaster.
Not true, says Habeck, he is often in Brussels. Many problems have been inherited, such as the shortage of skilled workers. In Scandinavia, for example, many women return to work after pregnancy, but in Germany the figure is fewer. This is due to the lack of care infrastructure, which the traffic light coalition is now taking care of.
So it goes back and forth a bit, mistakes from today, mistakes from the past. Habeck accuses Merz of not having an industrial policy before him, and that he is now making it. Merz accuses Habeck of his policy being based on subsidies, “the balloon has burst!”
It was not an advertisement for a black-green federal government. But it was not a swan song either. A conversation requires the assumption that the other person could be right, as the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer once said. On this evening, Habeck and Merz were at least close to this maxim.