German Chancellor Frontrunner Olaf Scholz: “I Want To Make the World a Better Place”
DER SPIEGEL: The Left Party didn’t receive enough votes to be a possible coalition partner for the SPD and the Greens. Does the lack of that option leave you with less leverage in your talks with the FDP?
Scholz: You should never conduct negotiations by constantly threatening to do something else. One lesson from real life is that genuine affection is the result of serious engagement.
DER SPIEGEL: Are you hoping to find love in a government together with the Greens and the FDP?
Scholz: I said affection. With the aim of accomplishing something together.
DER SPIEGEL: You once said: “If you order leadership, that’s what you get.” Does that also apply to a three-party coalition?
Scholz: Even the most powerful politician in the country is not alone in the world. But the reverse is also true: It is about moving forward. Just being there is not enough.
DER SPIEGEL: You’re dodging the question. We were asking about the role of the chancellor in a three-party coalition government. Does the chancellor have more of a moderating roll or is it a true leadership function?
Scholz: The government as a whole has a leadership task. It is about leadership in the Chancellery and in the ministries. We need to move the future of the country forward, and we will.
DER SPIEGEL: You speak of a common project for progress, but the reality is that there are clashing policy approaches. The liberal FDP wants to keep the state out of people’s lives to the degree possible and is more focused on the market. The SPD and the Greens are more statist and want a strong state. How are you going to fit those competing interests together?
Scholz: I have specific ideas about how they might fit. Neither the SPD nor the Greens see themselves as being statist. But I ask for your indulgence, I am not conducting coalition negotiations with DER SPIEGEL. It would not be wise to talk about any red lines now. Even from different starting points, it must be possible to reach an understanding in the end.
DER SPIEGEL: What will you have to give up in order to reach an agreement? The wealth tax, for example?
Scholz: As I said, we are not conducting the talks via the media. We are currently experiencing a special moment in German history. In terms of the country’s industrial modernization, we can most easily compare it with the period at the end of the 19th century, when there were also great leaps and changes.
DER SPIEGEL: What does that have to do with the formation of a coalition government?
Scholz: We do not want to have to play catch-up with the developments. Not in terms of digitalization or the gigabit society. We have major policy overlaps – when it comes, for example, to a first-class mobile communications network for Germany. We know that we need to expand and modernize the power grid. We will expand energy production from wind power and solar. To achieve this, we must streamline planning and approval procedures and support private-sector investment in industrial modernization. There is a lot that can be agreed upon.
DER SPIEGEL: The FDP could say the same thing – speeding up planning procedures and private-sector investment. Where is the social democratic approach there?
Scholz: The SPD has always been a party that is wedded to technological process. The special thing about this period is that workers themselves are calling for modernization. There is an opportunity for a coalition of progress that goes far beyond the governing coalition and encompasses the whole of society.
DER SPIEGEL: Then let’s get specific. Green Party co-head Robert Habeck has conceded that not even the Greens’ plan goes far enough to meet the climate target of limiting global warming to 1.5 percent. And the SPD plans don’t even go that far. Do you even want to achieve that goal?
Scholz: Yes. We are facing existential challenges. Climate change not only affects the quality of life of future generations – we are already experiencing it with the floods in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. That is why we need to speed up our efforts and understand that global warming can only be stopped through a different industrial policy.
DER SPIEGEL: That sounds pretty vague.
Scholz: I don’t think so. It will not be enough for us to reduce our emissions of climate-damaging gases in Germany. We are too small a part of the global population for that. We need to prove to those who would like to have our standard of living that coal-fired power plants are always the worse choice. The German economy, one of the most productive in the world, shows that it is possible to reconcile prosperity and climate protection.
DER SPIEGEL: Europe doesn’t play a major role in this?
Scholz: Of course Europe has to do its part. Our automobile industry would not dare to make the big change if Germany were the only market where this worked. It is already necessary now to be able to charge your electric car in Umbria, Brittany and Uppsala.