Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has urgently warned against letting the traffic light coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP collapse because of the budget dispute. “The greatest favor we could do to the enemies of liberal democracy at home and abroad would be for another European democracy to go into early elections,” the Green politician told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. “Our damn job as a government is to solve problems together, even in difficult times.”
She has great confidence in the three-way group consisting of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) to agree on a draft budget for the coming year by July 3, as planned.
One point of contention in the budget negotiations is the debt brake, which Lindner is sticking to but which the SPD and Greens want to handle more flexibly. The debt brake could be suspended by emergency resolution, as was already the case during the Corona pandemic.
Baerbock believes that the conditions are met now. “What greater emergency could there be than this war in the middle of Europe?” asked the Foreign Minister. “It would be fatal to have to say in a few years: We saved the debt brake, but lost Ukraine and the European peace order.”
When asked about the Greens’ candidacy for chancellor and pointing out that Habeck was considered the favorite, Baerbock said: “As foreign minister, I learned that anything is possible.” At the same time, she stressed that her job and that of the economics minister was “to solve the acute problems, not to conduct public personnel debates.” In 2021, Baerbock was the Greens’ candidate for chancellor.
