Baden-Wuerttemberg
German Minister Lindner: Governing with the CDU would not be easier
Germany’s finance minister Christian Lindner has admitted that his liberal FDP party does not find it easy to govern alongside the SPD and the Greens.
Christian Lindner, Chairman of the FDP and Federal Minister of Finance, speaks in the opera house at the traditional Epiphany meeting of the FDP. Photo: Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
However, a government with the Union of CDU and CSU would not be easier.
“Nobody should be under the illusion that governing with the Union would be easier,” said the FDP leader at his party’s traditional Epiphany meeting on Friday in Stuttgart. “It would just be different.”
As a result of the 2021 federal election, Lindner has been finance minister of the red-green-yellow alliance since December 8 of that year, which is also called the traffic light after the colors of the three parties. Before that, the CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU had ruled Germany for 16 years under Chancellor Angela Merkel and with various coalition partners. After 2022, which was marked by numerous crises, the intention was to make 2023 the “design year”, he said.
Lindner also referred to the lack of skilled workers in Germany and called for a more flexible labor market and a different immigration policy. It must become more difficult to immigrate to the welfare state and it must become easier to immigrate to the labor market, he said.
The FDP leader also called for more investment in the education of young people. “This country must do more for education and research,” said Lindner on Friday. “For that to really make a difference, we need an additional billion in education every year in the next few years.”
(SDA)