The black-green coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia will probably come, and at the end of June CDU man Hendrik Wüst can be re-elected head of government in the Düsseldorf state parliament. Wüst sees himself as an opponent of Olaf Scholz. But this is not the only bad news for the social democratic Chancellor.
For the first time in its history, Germany’s most populous federal state will soon be governed by a coalition of Christian Democrats and the Greens. The fact that CDU man Hendrik Wüst and the Green Mona Neubaur want to form a government alliance in North Rhine-Westphalia is not even the worst news for the Social Democratic Chancellor. One number is particularly dangerous for Olaf Scholz.
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First of all: North Rhine-Westphalia ticks to the left and has always tended to be governed by the left. Which is not only because of the SPD, but even more because the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU is traditionally left-leaning. Karl Arnold, the first freely elected Prime Minister, issued the slogan that defined this state: “North Rhine-Westphalia is the social conscience of the republic.” Significantly, this sentence can also be found a good 75 years later in the first paper on which the Bald coalition partners have agreed: “North Rhine-Westphalia should remain the social conscience of the republic.”
This is factually underpinned by social projects such as a “Pact Against Child Poverty” or the nationwide provision of hospitals in the country as close as possible to where people live – an expensive affair.
Social projects are supplemented by identity-political projects such as the idea of strengthening “queer life” in the country and developing an “action plan for diversity and against homophobia and transphobia”. NRW also wants to develop under Black-Green as a “cosmopolitan immigration country”, which will result in the public service being more “intercultural” open.
Gender is also used in the agreement paper – in future, asylum seekers will be called “asylum seekers” in North Rhine-Westphalia. For the universities, one looks in vain for a commitment to scientific excellence, the top priority is their climate neutrality.
As a reminder: the Prime Minister is the CDU.
The perception of North Rhine-Westphalia as a “social democratic heart chamber” is as widespread as it is wrong, as the Greens-friendly exploratory paper supported by the CDU also shows. The “heart” of the SPD is at most the city of Dortmund, which has been governed by Social Democrats since the end of the Second World War.
In fact, North Rhine-Westphalia is as colorful as Germany, politically, economically and socio-demographically. NRW is Germany in small, which in this case is bad news for the SPD and for the Chancellor.
The 12-page paper that the CDU and the Greens have agreed on is what is “left” under black and green. It says: “We will make North Rhine-Westphalia the first climate-neutral industrial region in Germany.” Industry plus climate plus transformation – the two new partners are setting a tone that points far beyond Germany’s second largest non-city state.
One looks in vain for a reference to clan crime in this paper. The Greens deny that there is such a thing, although proven experts like Ralph Ghadban have written thick books on it. According to information from FOCUS Online, the Minister of the Interior, Herbert Reul, to whom the CDU owes much of its election victory, is currently struggling to continue its consistent line in the fight against crime.
Back to the Chancellor and his traffic light coalition in Berlin. In North Rhine-Westphalia, a counter-model is emerging under the leadership of the CDU. The counter-model precisely because, like the coalition in Berlin, it is dominated by projects from the left spectrum. Except that this time the SPD is not primarily responsible for such things, but the CDU.
What Scholz and the SPD really have to worry about is the fact that coalitions reflect social trends, sometimes even anticipating them. This applies in particular to North Rhine-Westphalia, where the first social-liberal coalition was formed – a few years before Willy Brandt and Walter Scheel initiated this “change of power” at federal level in 1969.
And the political and social mega current in Germany is now black and green. One number in particular makes this clear. After the CDU and Greens have also reached an agreement in Schleswig-Holstein, four large area states will probably be governed black-green or green-black: North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein.
In the short and medium term, it is certainly important for the Berlin coalition what effects this will have on its work, for example through shifts in the Bundesrat. But in the medium and long term, something else is crucial. In the future, the majority of people in Germany will be governed by Black and Green. These coalitions are led by CDU politicians who expect something like a modernization push for their Christian Democrats, who no longer want to be “conservative”, from the coalition with the Greens.
As I said, the majority of people in Germany will soon be ruled black and green. There are around 38 million people.
