No one likes waiting for a traffic light. But for Germans the wait is over. On November 24th a new r
uling coalition was unveiled. Forming it took only two months after an election. (In the Netherlands
parties are still haggling after eight.) Nicknamed “traffic light” after the colours of the parties
that will make it up, it is a three-way contraption, Germany’s first since the 1950s, with the Soci
al Democrats in the lead backed up by the Greens and the Free Democrats. But whether the incoming ch
ancellor, Olaf Scholz, will offer dynamic leadership, rather than more of Germany’s recent drift, is
hard to say.
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We choose to be optimistic. The entry into the government of the world’s fourth-largest economy by t
he mainly pragmatic Greens is good news at a time of environmental peril. The devil is in the detail
, and there is a lot of it already; the coalition deal comes in the form of a 177-page document layi
ng out its pre-agreed policies. On climate change, these include a pledge to end the burning of coal
for electric power by 2030 (eight years earlier than had previously been planned) and to raise the
share of renewables to 80% by 2030, from a previous goal of 65%. There is also welcome attention to
the nuts and bolts of how all these commitments will actually be achieved.
More than that, it is now reasonable to expect that Germany, whose new foreign minister is set to be
Annalena Baerbock, one of the Greens’ co-leaders, will push much harder than before for the eu to d
o more to fight climate change, and for the eu’s weight as the world’s second-largest consumer marke
t to be used to urge others on. Germany cannot routinely get its own way in the eu, of course; but i
t is still the most influential member of the club. Likewise, Europe does not always prevail. But it
s commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, though it binds no one else, has
become a global standard that others are under increasing pressure to meet.
The carbon news is therefore good, and other parts of the package are as well. nato allies may fret
that Germany now plans to attend the first meeting of signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition o
f Nuclear Weapons. But it will be as an observer only and, more important, the new government will c
ontinue with “nuclear sharing”: the positioning of American nukes on German soil and Germany’s commi
tment to maintain aircraft to drop them if need be. (A failure to commit itself firmly to nato’s def
ence-spending target of 2% gdp is a bigger, but hardly new, worry.) Other pluses include measures to
reform Germany’s creaking bureaucracy and a vow to legalise cannabis. A tougher line against Russia
and especially China is also on the cards.
There are trickier elements. The expected appointment of Christian Lindner, leader of the Free Democ
rats, as finance minister suggests that ditching Germany’s outmoded debt brake or loosening the eu’s
purse strings beyond its €750bn ($840bn) covid-recovery package is unlikely; Mr Lindner has been an
opponent of both. Still, none of this looked likely to change much, whoever got the job. Mr Scholz
is thrifty, like most German voters, and Germany belongs to a group of frugal northern eu countries.
Even so, the deal contains signs of flexibility here, too. And Mr Lindner’s involvement could well
be a plus. He is strongly pro-business, and his presence will reassure conservatives if such flexibi
lity is employed.
Perhaps the biggest worry about the new coalition is that it may spend too much of its time arguing.
On many issues, Mr Scholz can expect his liberal partners to pull in one direction, and his Green p
artners in another. The laboriously hashed-out plan provides a baseline of agreement, but there will
always be things it failed to foresee, or simply ducked. Covid-19 is again raging in Germany (see L
eader) and Vladimir Putin is a menace. But the methodical and disciplined way the three parties have
worked through their differences gives reason to hope that they will be able to go on doing so.