German parties agree coalition deal to make Olaf Scholz chancellor (Baerbock foreign; Habeck economy + environment; Lindner finance)
German parties agree coalition deal to make Olaf Scholz chancellor (Baerbock foreign; Habeck economy + environment; Lindner finance)
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Oh my, Scholz promised to “invest heavily”. This could be good.
That ‘first traffic light in Berlin’ analogy was painful though.
EDIT: A summary of the coalition agreement: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/ampel-regierung-stellt-plaene-vor-das-steht-im-koalitionsvertrag-von-spd-fdp-und-gruenen/27829770.html
Habeck is supposed to be **the Minister of Economy and Climate Protection**, not Environment. That’s a separate ministry.
Honestly, it’s actually looks reasonably good.
* Phase out coal by 2030 (although if the CO2 price keeps increasing it will be uneconomical long before then)
* 12 € minimum wage (up from currently 9.60 €)
* Make the first two years of ALG II (the “dole”) independent of where you live or your savings. This is great news for people who are only temporarily unemployed, as it gives them more time to find work without having to give up their apartments or burn their savings first.
* Guaranteed minimum income for children, which should also help with child poverty
* Mandate for solar panels on commercial buildings. I would have liked to see that extended to private homes too, but it may have been too costly.
* More controls on rising rents, and building lots of new apartments. We’ll have to see how it’s done in detail, but at least it’s going in the right direction.
* Allowing doctors to advertise abortion services. Fracking finally.
* Allowing homosexuals to donate blood. Again, fracking finally.
* Lowering the voting age to 16.
My biggest concerns right now is there aren’t enough hard targets for the *Verkehrswende*, as well as the pension system. The FDP managed to keep the contributions steady, and the SPD prevented the pensions from dropping, so the hole in the system is only going to get bigger in the future. Yes, they’re planning on investing some of the pension contributions, but it probably won’t be enough. Looks like they kicked the can down the road again.
Also, the FDP’s insistence on holding on to the deficit ceiling is going to make it hard to come up with the money for all the badly needed investments in the coming years.