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Whatever the party’s long-term strategy, there’s no question that it has decided to ignore Scholz’s calls for détente and go on the attack by ignoring its partners’ red lines.
Ruining Scholz’s summer holiday
The party’s summer disruption campaign began last week. In an interview with German public television, party leader Christian Lindner, who is also Germany’s finance minister, cast doubt on a budget compromise that he, Scholz and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens had reached in early July.
The July agreement was preceded by a months-long standoff, with Lindner, a fiscal hawk, refusing to accede to demands from his partners to relax Germany’s strict budget rules. Yet in the interview, Lindner suggested the deal was in peril, saying that “there are constitutional risks and questions of concrete implementation.”
Scholz was so enraged by Lindner’s foray that he did the unthinkable for most Germans and interrupted his summer holiday. Without mentioning Lindner by name, Scholz said it was “a mystery” how anyone could question the constitutionality of the budget based on the legal assessments the government had received.
Wolfgang Kubicki, a senior FDP parliamentarian and vice chairman of his party, shot back, saying that it was “a mystery to the FDP how reckless the SPD and Greens are with the constitution.”
That was only the beginning. Over the weekend, the FDP opened a new front with its pro-car push.