The alarm cries of leading CDU/CSU politicians on the subject of budget restructuring could be part of a shift in discourse
The rough coalition in Berlin is taking shape. The personnel ies are settled, at least in principle. Now it is a matter of content. Superlatives have not been spared since the beginning of the week. The "Roughest budget restructuring in German history" predicts Edmund Stoiber, the designated Minister of Economics. The rough "Howling and teeth rattling", Stoiber refers to the Maastricht criteria, according to which the debt of an EU member state may not exceed three percent of the gross domestic product. If Germany is to achieve this goal by 2007, 35 billion euros will have to be saved.
The strong words are not surprising at first. After all, appeals to tighten the belt have been part of the standard repertoire of all leading politicians for more than a decade. But most of the time they are ared that it is not so bad after all. The strong words of the Union politicians are also astonishing because the concrete budget cuts are not yet known. Instead, the proposals are piling up. The homeowner’s allowance is to be abolished, the commuter allowance is to be severely curtailed, the federal subsidy for pension insurance is to be lowered, and the health insurance contribution for senior citizens is to be raised. Even an increase in the value-added tax is not explicitly ruled out. The impression is that all sectors of society will be affected by shortcuts. That is why Stoiber and Koch have been accused of alarmism and scaremongering.
But these words could well follow a calculation. If everyone has to make sacrifices, the social group that supposedly refuses to do so is quickly pilloried. The outgoing Minister of Economics, Clement, has provided the template for this with his report "Priority for the decent. There is unabashed talk of rip-offs of the people’s wealth and, indirectly, of parasites and freeloaders. In the report there is an open call to denounce neighbors who allegedly abuse the social system to the authorities. Several times, a ZDF team is quoted as saying "hidden camera" filmed, for example, in the office of a PDS member of the Bundestag, giving advice on how to abuse unemployment benefits. The wire between the media and the authorities was very short in this case. The media as a deputy sheriff, seems to be the guiding principle.
Here a discourse shift could also be indicated in the relevant media. It is no longer the shortcuts and impositions of Agenda 2010 that are the scandal. For this, any attempts to circumvent these regulations should be socially respected. The new honesty of Koch and Stoiber could not simply be dismissed as alarmism from this point of view. They were able to pave the way for a new social discourse, in which those who made sacrifices and were decent took the lead "to be set against parasites on the social community. The conditions for this were better than ever before. Finally, with the SPD, large parts of the trade unions were also in the boat of the coalition of the decent. The ‘usual suspects’ from the left-wing party and social movements could then all the more freely be stigmatized as harming the common interest. If unemployment cannot be fundamentally eliminated, then at least some sinecure must be found.
Last week, Chancellor-designate Merkel clearly outlined some of the advantages of a grand coalition in a Spiegel interview. What had led to fierce social disputes under the black-yellow coalition can now be pushed through in a more coarse consensus. There one can announce already times howling and teeth rattling.