I’ll tell you about the war in Germany on the new finance minister
Sharp blades in the fight for the next finance minister. In the dispute between Habeck (Verdi) and Lindner (Fdp) enter the economists Stiglitz and Tooze who advise not to appoint the liberal. And they collect spicy replicas.
The most important game in the great game of the new German government is played around the figure of the future finance minister. The dispute seems to concern the two prominent men of the so-called minor parties, the Greens and the Liberals, Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner. But the adjective "minors" no longer fits the two forces that took political initiative in the aftermath of the elections on September 26, have the preferences of the youth vote behind them and have made the turning point towards the center-left on the thrust of the need for a change of pace after sixteen years of Merkelism and twelve of Grosse Koalition.
STIGLITZ AND TOOZE AGAINST FINANCE IN LINDNER (FDP)
The tug-of-war that takes place behind the scenes was brought to the fore by a public intervention with a straight leg. Because it came from outside, both from the political field and from the national territory. Two world-renowned economists, American Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and British economic historian Adam Tooze, wrote a comment in the German weekly Die Zeit demanding that the next finance minister be not the liberal Lindner. The title: “It would be a mistake to grant his wish”.
The ironic and sarcastic style did not hide the harshness of the intervention: for his own good, Lindner should be spared the "impossible task" of having to apply his "antediluvian budget agenda" to today's financial situation. Europe and Germany cannot afford this "crash test", the two economists continue: the problem is that the financial policy agenda of the FDP and Lindner is not only "an accumulation of conservative clichés", but above all " are clichés of the nineties ”.
Better for everyone, and especially for Chancellor Scholz , would be to entrust the liberals with a super dicastery for Digitization, where they could measure all their capacity for innovation, instead letting the Greens, with their policies and strategies, lead the German financial machine for the next four years.
THE RISK OF REFURBISHING POPULISM IN ITALY
"The great danger for democracy in Europe is not represented by the interference of strangers or trolls on the Internet", continues the attack of the two professors, "but by the application at the wrong time of an inadequate budgetary discipline, which a group minority of northern states wants to impose on a majority of European voters ”. For Germany this option would be "catastrophic", as well as putting itself at the head of the northern states: "The Italian populists could not hope for better than engaging in public opposition with the German Ministry of Finance", conclude Stiglitz and Tooze, which "would be fatal for Italy and bad for Europe and Germany ”.
THE REPLICA OF LINDNER
There are those who believe that the departure of the two professors can more favor than damage Lindner's ambitions, especially since no politician likes to give the impression of being subjected to external interference. One of these is Christian Lindner, who replying in an interview with the Rheinische Post to the two economists, without mentioning them by name, said he felt confirmed in his positions in the face of certain criticisms. He calls them "debt economists", pigeons them on the left and says they cheer for inflation: "On the contrary, I look very carefully at the risk of currency devaluation and in the United States there could be a turnaround in interest rates to cause of the risk of inflation ". For Lindner, "the ECB's ability to act is questioned because some euro countries would find it difficult to refinance themselves without their help". "We must not intentionally increase the risk of so-called fiscal dominance, which is why in Europe and Germany we must maintain sustainable state finances."
HANDELSBLATT: STIGLITZ LOVED CHAVEZ
The Handelsblatt, on the other hand, returns the attack to the senders and does it in the German style, that is, without humor. Stiglitz's advice is insane and more than unusual, he writes in an editorial, recalling that “however exceptional his academic record is, his policy recommendations have been muddled. He has woven economic and political garlands for Venezuelan president and left-wing populist Hugo Chavez ”. Result? Today "Venezuela is a failed state" where "inflation gallops and the people are in poverty".
Especially the accusation of politics from the 1990s was not liked by the financial newspaper: "At a time when inflation is rising dramatically, the American economist hopes for a German finance minister who spends money with both hands and contracts in exchange huge debts ".
FUEST (IFO): A MINISTER IS NEEDED TO INDICATE DISCIPLINE
It will never happen, says Clemens Fuest, president of the most prestigious German economic institute, the Munich IFO. Speaking to foreign press reporters in Berlin, Fuest also maliciously recalled Stiglitz's sympathies for Chavez, and urged German politicians and economists not to take his provocations seriously. His position is "one-sided" and denounces "a naive and superficial understanding of German politics".
For the president of the Ifo, Germany instead needs a finance minister who does not lose sight of the needs of budgetary discipline, also to achieve a necessary rebalancing of forces within Europe and Germany itself with strong currents. pro-debts.
We are not in a phase of infinite resources, Fuest concluded, and there is a need to prioritize the expenses necessary to revive the economies after the pandemic.
FINANCES NOW MORE IMPORTANT THAN FOREIGN
The dispute over the Ministry of Finance is also a child of the spirit of the times. It has become the key department of the executive, the lever of any future policy. It is also the place of prestige. What was once shunned like the plague, because it was identified in the tax ministry that put its hands in the pockets of citizens, is now coveted and sought after. It was once the foreign minister who embodied authority in addition to the chancellor, just scroll down a few names: Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Walter Scheel, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Joschka Fischer. From the 2000s the Minister of Finance took over, from Wolfgang Schäuble to Olaf Scholz himself, who built his incredible electoral comeback on the treasures distributed in the months of the pandemic crisis and promised after the summer flood. Who knows that in the end, between Habeck and Lindner, a compromise name will not come up.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/germania-ministro-finanze-nuovo-governo/ on Fri, 29 Oct 2021 12:17:38 +0000.