At Markus Lanz, Lars Klingbeil tries to downplay the dispute in the traffic light coalition about how to deal with nuclear energy. That amuses the ZDF moderator.
Hamburg – “The situation is totally serious” and yet Markus Lanz has a lot to laugh about that evening. He wants to “develop a feeling for” how “crazy our world is right now” and appreciate people who can explain content: they just have to be found first. He is looking for Lars Klingbeil (SPD federal chairman), Christian Dürr (FDP parliamentary group leader), Hannah Bethke (“Die Zeit” political journalist) and Golineh Atai (head of the ZDF studios in Cairo).
At the beginning, Markus Lanz talks to Lars Klingbeil on ZDF, who has just been awarded Political Strategist of the Year and is (once again) a bit bleary-eyed. But the focus is on the wrangling between the Minister of Economics and the Minister of Finance: The two are “a kind of double boom,” says the moderator on ZDF. Should two nuclear power plants now run “a little longer”, as Robert Habeck would like, or three nuclear power plants should run “much longer”, as Christian Lindner would like? A childish or even “small-minded” argument? At least “there’s nothing going on in terms of runtimes right now,” jokes Markus Lanz. And yet these are “difficult times.”
Markus Lanz (ZDF): It’s not going forward
“You don’t have the feeling that things are really moving forward,” says Markus Lanz, and Golineh Atai agrees: Actually, it’s more the feeling “that we’re in a super-complicated world right now.” There are so many ” economic constraints” that it is essential to work together. The population is not interested in petty disputes and parties that “ideologically get at each other’s hair”, but rather in constructive results. “Only one person benefits from this (political) division: Vladimir Putin.”
When the FDP entered the Bundestag, there was a lot of talk about progress and about “breaking the standstill of the Merkel era”. But now there are new, more urgent issues and Christian Dürr pleads with Markus Lanz (ZDF) to “continue to work in a concentrated manner” and “to take responsibility”, since every decision has “extreme effects”. “There is a despot in the Kremlin who is trying to attack liberal democracy.” In such times, the FDP politician does not want to play monopoly with the German economy in order to remain able to act, but would rather the population get the impression that ” that we treat each other fairly. Actually.”
Markus Lanz (ZDF): When will the government wake up?
It is not an option to say “there is no problem at all, there is a lot of state money there”, believes Christian Dürr. Even if it is “an uncomfortable role” to constantly remind that a state should not borrow indefinitely while the population desperately cries out for help, support and relief. Hannah Bethke sees the yellow light in “the traffic light flickering”: the FDP’s poor performance in the elections in Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia and now also Lower Saxony does not bode well for the “political situation in the country”, because it strengthens the radical forces. Golineh Atai is also worried that appeals have to come from the population first for the “government to wake up.”
“The country’s plight is repeatedly invoked,” but nobody really wants to go into the coalition dispute, complains Markus Lanz. Hannah Bethke can go into more detail: The debate is about the third nuclear power plant in Emsland, she explains. According to their information, the fuel rods here have long since burned out, so new fuel rods would be needed, which would mean that the nuclear power plant would then have to run for several years. “The price that is being negotiated here is a bit high.” She considers the FDP’s sprint “unnecessary and inappropriate at this time”. Especially since Christian Lindner swung big speeches at the beginning that it was about “renewable energies as energies of freedom”.
| Markus Lanz (ZDF) | The guests of the program from October 13th |
|---|---|
| Lars Klingbeil | SPD chairman |
| Christian Durr | FDP faction leader |
| Hannah Betheke | journalist |
| Golineh Atai | Middle East expert |
Since the beginning of government on February 24, “fundamental things have changed in this country”, Lars Klingbeil justifies this change of opinion. Ultimately, they “always had harmonious, constructive meetings” in which the parties of the traffic light coalition – in less than a year – “really achieved a lot.” The word “harmonious” leaves Markus Lanz speechless, when it does there seems to be so many inconsistencies. “We asked Robert Habeck” to check whether “we’re going to have a power shortage,” said Lars Klingbeil, as usual, calming things down, and the result was “unambiguous”: Germany has enough electricity. “The Chancellor, Christian Lindner and Robert Habeck” now have to find out whether it will affect the price if the nuclear power plants run longer and “what the form of energy of the future will look like.”
At least for the SPD, the SPD national chairman sees the direction “very clearly: we want to get out of nuclear energy.” But in emergency situations, the priority is “to save jobs in this country, to ensure that social cohesion is secured, that this society doesn’t fall apart.” There is no time for lengthy fundamental debates, it’s about “getting the country through this crisis.” (Tina Waldeck)
