{"id":565803,"date":"2025-11-12T16:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/565803\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T16:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:33:11","slug":"from-german-finance-minister-to-used-car-salesman-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/565803\/","title":{"rendered":"From German finance minister to used car salesman \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Autoland confirmed Lindner\u2019s new role on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/autoland.de\/files\/downloads\/PM_Christian%20Lindner%20wird%20stellvertretender%20Vorstandsvorsitzender%20der%20AUTOLAND%20AG_20251112.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wednesday<\/a>, saying he \u201cwill be responsible for marketing, sales, and digitalization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lindner served as finance minister in the troubled, three-party coalition government of previous Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Persistent conflicts over spending between Lindner\u2019s fiscally conservative FDP and his left-leaning coalition partners led to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-coalition-government-collapse-olaf-scholz-finance-minister-christian-lindner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">premature collapse of that government<\/a> in late 2024, prompting an early federal election in February.<\/p>\n<p>During his time in office, Lindner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-should-allow-climate-friendly-fuel-cars-after-2035-says-germanys-lindner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pushed back against the EU\u2019s planned phaseout of the combustion engine<\/a> and was seen as close to the auto industry. In 2022, he was embroiled in a scandal over a text-message exchange with Porsche CEO Oliver Blume in which Lindner asked for \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.abgeordnetenwatch.de\/recherchen\/lobbyismus\/das-sind-die-porschegate-sms-von-christian-lindner-und-oliver-blume\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">support with my arguments.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-election-friedrich-merz-cdu-olaf-scholz-spd-afd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In the federal election earlier this year<\/a>, Lindner\u2019s FDP failed to reach the 5 percent threshold required for a party to make it into the Bundestag. He then stepped down as leader of the party, marking a stunning downfall for a politician once deemed by his peers to be a wunderkind of European fiscal conservatism.<\/p>\n<p>Under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bundestag.de\/resource\/blob\/889458\/ec06ebad8f03d2622b336c2f2464a450\/WD-3-012-22-pdf-data.pdf\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.bundestag.de\/resource\/blob\/889458\/ec06ebad8f03d2622b336c2f2464a450\/WD-3-012-22-pdf-data.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">German law<\/a>, former members of government have to report new private sector jobs for 18 months after leaving office. In cases involving potential conflicts of interest, the current government can disallow former officials from taking a job.<\/p>\n<p>German media poked fun at the former finance minister over his new job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChristian Lindner joins the ranks of used car dealers,\u201d ran the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/wirtschaft\/christian-lindner-geht-unter-die-gebrauchtwagenhaendler-steigt-in-vorstand-eines-autodiscounters-ein-a-2652d430-8db4-4765-802c-dcf067b24611\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">headline of a Spiegel article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Autoland confirmed Lindner\u2019s new role on\u00a0Wednesday, saying he \u201cwill be responsible for marketing, sales, and digitalization.\u201d Lindner served&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[346,42368,30088,33,2000,299,474,11070,1824,806,2452,7337,42369],"class_list":{"0":"post-565803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-cars","9":"tag-christian-lindner","10":"tag-digitalization","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-finance","15":"tag-german-politics","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-industry","18":"tag-media","19":"tag-olaf-scholz","20":"tag-oliver-blume"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115537694075641259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}