After a year in government, SPD leader Klingbeil only gave the traffic light a grade of three. Klingbeil calls for more team spirit and more focus on the modernization of the country from coalition partners.
The SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil draws a mixed balance after the first year of the traffic light: In the BILD am SONNTAG he only gives the federal government a grade of 3 for its work so far. For a better assessment of government performance, the SPD leader lacks the team spirit within the government team. “A little less public argument also means that grades get better,” he told BILD am SONNTAG. “I understand that this year of government has demanded a lot from everyone, but some discussions were too long, too public, too personal.”
Klingbeil called on the coalition partners to treat each other better: “We should get back to the political culture from the coalition negotiations. The same applies again: We tackle this together without constantly measuring which of the three partners has prevailed where exactly.”
Klingbeil also warned that the government was pushing ahead with modernizing the country. “We’re not good enough yet. We built an LNG terminal in Lower Saxony within 200 days, but setting up wind turbines still takes too long. It has to get faster,” said the party leader. “The big agenda of the traffic light is: We are doing everything we can to grow out of the crisis through modernization – more renewable energies, more digitization, more immigration of skilled workers, less bureaucracy.”
At the same time, Klingbeil emphasized that the government was “faced with glaring challenges like no other before.” Putin’s brutal war, the energy crisis, inflation and the climate crisis occupied the coalition of SPD, FDP and Greens at the same time. “The traffic light has the difficult situation well under control, but there is still room for improvement,” said the SPD chairman.
