Germany: The role of the Free Democratic Party in the next government

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Germany: The role of the Free Democratic Party in the next government
By Dietmar Henning
5 October 2009

On Monday October 5, just one week after Germany’s federal elections,
the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU)
begin talks in Berlin with the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP)
aimed at forming a coalition government. The CDU/CSU (the union)
explained that it wanted to put forward a government programme within
five to six weeks.

In the past few days, prominent FDP politicians, in particular party
chairman Guido Westerwelle, have outlined their version of such a
government programme. It envisages unparalleled cuts in the country’s
social welfare system, the further promotion of the interests of big
business and the wealthy together with an aggressive nationalist
foreign policy.

The election result means the FDP will be far more strongly
represented in the new government than it was under the administration
of Helmut Kohl (CDU), who was voted out of office in 1998. The
Handelsblatt business newspaper wrote on October 1, “It was
particularly Angela Merkel’s weakness in implementing reforms that led
entrepreneurs and independent businessmen to flood over to the FDP.
Many hoped that a dynamic FDP could restore reason to a
social-democratized union.”

This is precisely the role played by the FDP. The party leadership
immediately moved to repudiate statements by CDU politicians that the
new government would not contemplate changes to laws restricting the
firing of workers. In Bild-Zeitung, deputy FDP chair Andrea Pinkwart
warned the CDU/CSU that they “cannot declare entire fields of policy
non-negotiable from the start. Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and
the CDU/CSU should tone down their war of words.”

Westerwelle explained, “Our compass in the negotiations will be our
programme.” The FDP wants to implement as much of it as possible.

The programme of the FDP, “The Germany Program,” is an appeal for the
abolition of everything fought for by the workers’ movement in the
last 150 years.

A “simple” wage and income tax model should decrease taxes in
particular for top earners. There are to be rates of just 10 and 25
percent taxation, as well as a top tax rate of 35 percent. At present,
the top tax rate is around 42 percent. Prior to the government of
Gerhard Schröder (SPD) taking office in 1998, the top level of tax was
around 53 percent.

Business is also to be awarded substantial concessions. Trade tax, an
important source of income for the municipalities, is to be abolished,
while the losses of venture capitalists are to be “reimbursed in full.”

Employees’ legal protections against dismissal are to be abolished as
far as possible. The protection will only apply to companies with more
than 20 employees and after two years employment. When signing their
employment contract, workers would be offered compensation and/or
financing for further training instead of any legal protection against
dismissal in cases of compulsory redundancy. It is clear that workers
looking for a job will be left with no choice but to agree to these terms.

The FDP also rejects the minimum wage: “Free collective bargaining
must be protected against state wage dictates.” The FDP is even
floating the idea of establishing special economic zones (so-called
“model regions”), where the state governments can flaunt existing
labour laws and regulations. In 1990, the FPD had already demanded
that the former East Germany be declared a special economic zone.

In addition, the privatisation of the social insurance scheme and
lower taxes for the rich and big business will be at the expense of
the general population. “A concept for a fair tax must be linked to
consolidating state finances,” the FDP election programme reads. The
FDP demands a prohibition on new debts at the federal, state and
municipal level, which would mean drastic cuts in education as well as
social services and such facilities as swimming pools, sports fields,
libraries, etc.

The social insurance scheme will be privatised if the FDP has its way.
State-backed insurance schemes covering pensions, sickness and
long-term care will be transferred to a “funded” private model, in
which individuals can “decide for themselves” what level of insurance
and how they finance it according to their own resources.
“Unbureaucratic contribution models are essential for cost-conscious
and healthy behaviour.”

The long-term unemployed are to receive so-called “bürgergeld”
(“citizens' money”) which will combine unemployment benefits, payments
for accommodation and heating, child allowance and rent subsidies. “By
means of bürgergeld, benefits will be fundamentally averaged out and
be administered by a single authority,” the programme states. An
unemployed person without children would receive just €662 per month
and be expected to pay for everything. “In the case where a reasonable
job offer is refused, the bürgergeld would be cut.”

If the unemployed cannot afford to pay their rent, they will be at the
mercy of their landlords because, “Asymmetrical terms of notice,
excessive backlogs on rent payments as well as grace periods for
defaulting tenants are to be abolished.”

The FDP’s traditional appeal to defend “citizens’ rights,” which it
reaffirmed in the current federal election campaign, is merely a
diversion. The so-called “liberal wing” was always a minority in the
party, and civil rights have inevitably fallen victim to “pressure”
from its coalition partners. This will also undoubtedly be the case in
the coming coalition. The CDU/CSU has made it clear that it will
refuse to reverse any of the measures introduced by the last two
governments restricting democratic rights and massively increasing the
forms of state spying.

A compromise between the coalition partners could then take the form
of the FDP accepting the CDU/CSU stance on the dismantling of
democratic rights and the development of “security measures”; in for
allowing the FDP to press ahead with its programme of welfare cuts and
pro-business tax breaks.

Some media outlets and business organisations have recently proposed
that FDP leader Westerwelle take over as so-called super-minister for
finance and economy. The president of the Taxpayers Federation, Karl
Heinz Däke, stressed that Westerwelle could then “use his expert
knowledge in tax and financial policy much better.” Usually, the
junior coalition partner is given control of the foreign ministry,
which is also linked with the office of vice-chancellor.

As in domestic policy, so too in foreign policy, the FDP advocates a
programme that aggressively pursues the interests of German big
business. It believes German imperialism should become the supreme
power in Europe, able to look Washington in the eye.

The FDP programme calls for “genuine competition” in the internal
European market. The majority of EU subsidies that presently flow into
agricultural and structural funds, and thus into the pockets of
Europe’s “allies,” should be redirected into the “strategic areas of
European policy,” such as the protection of the EU’s external borders
and on foreign and security policy. A “long-term goal remains for the
FDP the construction of a European Armed Forces under a joint supreme
command.”

In NATO, the FDP wants to increase “Europe’s weight.” “The FDP seeks
an equitable security partnership within the Atlantic alliance. This
means developing European security and defence policy and
strengthening the German Armed Forces.”

Other organizations should also be re-cast in Germany’s interests.
“Germany, which contributes substantially to the financing of
international and European organizations, must also be appropriately
represented in these bodies in terms of personnel.”

To this end, the FDP advocates a European seat on the UN Security
Council. As long as there is no seat for the EU, “a German seat would
be the second-best solution.”

With a strengthened Germany, the FDP then wants to work “together with
the new American administration on re-establishing the West as a
capable community of the enlightened constitutional democracies of
this world.” With Russia, it wants “critical dialogue and pragmatic
co-operation.”

In the Middle East, it wants policy to follow the purse strings:
economic support for all countries in the region should be dependent
upon their support for the “peace process.”

In Afghanistan, however, the FDP indirectly seeks the strengthening of
the military. There had been a failure in “the building of efficient
government, administrative and security apparatuses,” its programme
declares. This calls for more personnel from Germany, for example to
assist in setting up the Afghan police.

In Iran, where Germany is defending important interests as one of the
country’s largest business partners, the FDP supports the “diplomatic
path.”

What the FDP means by the “diplomatic path” can be seen around the
world in the activities of the closely associated “Friedrich Naumann
Foundation for Liberty,” which enjoys millions in state subsidies,
receiving more than €36 million in 2007.

With its worldwide network of contacts, the foundation intervenes
actively in other countries’ domestic affairs, stirring up ethnic and
religious conflict. For example, in June it organised a conference in
Frankfurt entitled “The question of nationality and democracy in
Iran.” The conference sought to bring “more strongly into the focus of
international public opinion” the interests of ethnic and religious
minorities in Iran—“Azeri, Kurds, Arabs, Beluchis, Turkmens, Bahai, as
well as other smaller peoples and religious communities.”

At the beginning of the 1990s, the then FDP foreign minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher played an important role in stoking the civil
war in Yugoslavia. The hasty recognition of the secession of Slovenia
and Croatia, whose separatist efforts had been encouraged by Germany’s
BND (foreign secret service) for a long time, set a course for civil
war. Today, Genscher is honorary party chairman and has more recently
been seen in public alongside FDP leader Guido Westerwelle,
underscoring the party’s aspirations to the foreign ministry.

In Latin America, the Naumann Foundation maintains links to the
opposition in Venezuela and Bolivia. In Honduras, it intervened on the
side of those leading the coup against the democratically-elected
government. In Tibet, it supported last summer’s anti-Chinese protests.

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation is led by Wolfgang Gerhardt, for many
years a chairman of the FDP (1995 to 2001) and its bundestag (federal
parliament) faction (1998 to 2006). Before the 2005 bundestag
elections, he was regarded as the prospective foreign minister, had
the conservatives won the poll. When the FDP remained in opposition,
he took over the presidency of the party foundation, which plays an
extremely active role in foreign policy. Guido Westerwelle, who will
presumably now take over the foreign ministry, is not only closely
connected to the party foundation through Gerhardt, he is also a
former scholarship student of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

In the sixty years since the establishment of the Federal Republic of
Germany in 1949, the FDP has been in government for 42 years—from 1949
to 1957, from 1961 to 1966 and from 1969 to 1998—longer than any other
party. Since the party was founded, it has stood on the right wing of
the political spectrum—in economic and social policy, as in foreign
policy.

After the Second World War, many former Nazis found a home inside the
FDP, which integrated members of the old National Liberal Party and
even extreme German nationalist tendencies from the Weimar Republic
into its ranks. At its federal party congress in 1951, it called for
the release of all “so-called war criminals.” The FDP welcomed the
establishment of the “Federation of German Soldiers,” including former
members of the Wehrmacht and SS, in order to integrate these
nationalist forces.

In 1969, when the FDP formed a coalition government with the SPD,
these right-wing forces receded into the background, however they
remained active inside the party. The FDP’s self-promoted image as a
liberal bourgeois party, standing for the rights and freedom of the
citizen, rests entirely on its role during the SPD-FDP coalition from
1969 to 1982. Under Chancellor Willy Brandt (SPD), Walter Scheel took
over the foreign ministry from 1969 for the FDP. This office then
remained in the hands of the FDP for 29 years until 1998.

In the mid 1990s, the national-conservative forces around former Chief
Federal Prosecutor Alexander von Stahl and Berlin publicist Rainer
Zittelmann stepped onto the stage. In 1998, von Stahl then lost the
election to become chairman of the Berlin FPD. Since then, these
tendencies have been in the background.

However, in light of the international economic crisis and the
increasing conflicts between the imperialist states, these forces will
receive a boost inside the FDP. Westerwelle’s persistent refusal to
speak in English at the first press conference following the bundestag
elections was not due to his lack of fluency in that language or being
worn out. The British newspaper the Independent put it succinctly,
when it spoke about a “new Teutonic self-confidence.”

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