What the alternative finance minister and Scholz confidante Jörg Kukies is planning | EUROtoday

Es ist gut 33 Jahre her, dass Jörg Kukies zuletzt gegen die FDP demonstrierte. Damals studierte er Wirtschaftswissenschaften in seiner Heimatstadt Mainz, vor allem aber amtierte er als Landesvorsitzender der Jungsozialisten in der SPD. Anlass für den Zwist war ein unverhoffter Erfolg. Weil sich die Christdemokraten in Rheinland-Pfalz heillos zerstritten hatten, gewann der Sozialdemokrat Rudolf Scharping die Wahl mit einem aus heutiger Sicht sagenhaften Ergebnis von 44,8 Prozent der Stimmen. Das verschaffte ihm die Freiheit, wahlweise mit den Grünen oder der FDP zu regieren. Die liberale Option hielt er für strategisch klüger.

Kukies und seine Mitstreiterin Andrea Nahles fanden das nicht. Sie überreichten dem designierten Regierungschef vor einer SPD-Sitzung rot-grüne Luftballons. Geholfen hat es nicht: Die FDP sitzt seither in der Regierung des Bundeslandes, mit einer kurzen Unterbrechung von zwei Wahlperioden. Und viele der Juso von einst versöhnten sich mit der Entscheidung, auch Kukies, der seine Parteikarriere alsbald für ein Auslandsstudium aufgab, das ihn über Paris und die Vereinigten Staaten schließlich zur Investmentbank Goldman Sachs führte, ohne dass er seine Kontakte zu den politischen Mitstreitern von einst je komplett aufgegeben hätte.

Jetzt ist Kukies mithilfe der FDP aufgestiegen. Mit Versöhnung hat das allerdings wenig zu tun. Er darf sich Bundesminister der Finanzen nennen, es ist der einflussreichste Posten im Kabinett neben dem Bundeskanzler, in gewöhnlichen Zeiten wenigstens. Doch die Zeiten sind nicht gewöhnlich. Kukies übernahm die neue Aufgabe ziemlich plötzlich vom Freidemokraten Christian Lindner, der mit einem forschen Positionspapier den Bruch der Ampelkoalition provozierte – und dann doch recht überrascht war, dass Olaf Scholz ihm zuvorkam und beim Bundespräsidenten eine Entlassungsurkunde für den rebellischen Minister in Auftrag gab. Dass Kukies für den Fall der Fälle bereitstehen würde, dessen hatte Scholz sich im Vorfeld schon vergewissert.

At first look, it appeared logical that Kukies was chosen. After all, the now fifty-six-year-old had already served as State Secretary within the Ministry of Finance underneath division head Scholz between 2018 and 2021, so he is aware of the home and its workers nicely. Even as an financial and European coverage advisor within the Chancellery, he remained true to the problems and in addition gained worldwide expertise that the treasurer of a very powerful European financial nation wants. And as the previous German head of the funding financial institution Goldman Sachs, he additionally is aware of the monetary trade from the within.

This is the way it occurs {that a} political official within the ministry and chancellery immediately turns into a politician himself. Someone who’s formally solely presupposed to run the enterprise quietly through the election marketing campaign and the formation of a authorities and to make sure that the nation doesn’t run out of cash regardless of the shortage of finances resolutions. But additionally somebody who, as finance minister, is routinely on the middle of an financial election marketing campaign that basically revolves round tax and debt points.

It can be fairly attainable that the SPD’s recapture of the home will even final if it stays within the authorities because the Union’s junior accomplice after the election. At least that is how she did it in 2009 and 2018, and in 2013 she determined not to take action primarily as a result of she did not anticipate any political acquire from a coup in opposition to the favored incumbent Wolfgang Schäuble.

But greater than that, Kukies can be a former funding banker in the course of an SPD marketing campaign that some comrades wish to lead with harsh assaults on the previous supervisory board of an funding firm, on the Union candidate Friedrich Merz and his former work for Blackrock. “Friedrich Merz played around with people’s savings accounts at Blackrock,” mentioned Mahmut Özdemir, Parliamentary State Secretary within the Ministry of the Interior, on the radio just lately.

It has solely been a couple of hours since this morning interview when Kukies is welcomed into the minister’s workplace. It remains to be a bit uncommon to seek out the previous State Secretary within the place the place you final met Lindner, Scholz, and earlier than that Wolfgang Schäuble and Peer Steinbrück. The license plate “D-CL 2017” has disappeared, with which Lindner all the time reminded himself of the profitable resurrection election campaigns seven years in the past.

Also taken down are the work by a Chinese-born artist that confirmed competing prime German politicians standing the wrong way up (Lindner all the time denied a deeper which means). A satirical journal just lately found that the predecessor surrounded himself primarily with black and white portraits of himself. However, Kukies was usually requested about how lengthy he had been busy coping with this supposed narcissistic legacy.

Now he himself is the boss on the desk the place he and Olaf Scholz and his workforce hatched the massive disaster plans for years, from the fourth tranche of the Greece package deal to the Corona help. And he instantly explains why he considers banker bashing to be absurd – whether or not it’s directed in opposition to him or in opposition to political competitors.

“This idea doesn’t exist in many other countries: Anyone who has once worked at a bank is no longer acceptable in a center-left party,” he says. “At Goldman Sachs, I worked with a CEO who was a Republican and one who was a Democrat. Even in the French, British and many other center-left parties there have always been people from the financial sector.”

Yes, he even goes one step additional. If you discuss to him concerning the lack of innovation in Germany and different European international locations, in case you ask him concerning the few tasks that he can nonetheless push ahead on the European stage throughout his presumably quick time period in workplace, he instantly comes so far: “With a view to With the Capital Markets Union, our goal is to quickly address the issue of securitization and the financing of young, innovative companies. That would make financing our economy much easier.” He agrees together with his younger French counterpart Antoine Armand on this.

What’s extra, Kukies takes the chance to reward funding banking, which nearly makes him sound a bit just like the FDP. What does he see as the duty of the trade? “Clearly: to improve the financing conditions for companies in an economy. Why is the USA growing twice and three times as fast as Europe? A key reason is that the capital markets there are much better at providing growing companies with equity.”

The new minister in Brussels additionally desires to push for much less regulation. “I really hope that we can make progress on the issue of reducing bureaucracy,” he calls for. “The President of the Commission has made very far-reaching announcements about reducing reporting requirements, which we very much welcome. We now have to implement these announcements together.” He additionally agrees together with his French colleague on this.

However, the change in German ministers is not going to change something in coping with nationwide debt in Europe. “There are no party politics. We must consistently adhere to the European fiscal rules. Olaf Scholz’s word applies: A German finance minister is a finance minister.”

Unlike Brussels, there may be not a lot hope by means of Washington {that a} German finance minister can obtain a lot, even when he is aware of the United States in addition to the brand new one. From the age of two to the age of sixteen, Kukies grew up in California half of the time as a result of his father, {an electrical} engineer, moved forwards and backwards between the IBM places in Mainz and San José roughly each two years, which the son did above all, regardless of the fixed forwards and backwards with optimistic reminiscences, with visits to the outside pool from February to November and frequent journeys to the ocean.

From his time at Goldman Sachs, he even is aware of personally a few of the candidates who at the moment are being thought-about for the publish of Treasury Secretary in Washington. However, it’s unlikely that such contacts can do a lot to counter loyalty to Donald Trump and his program.

More non-public capital for investments, much less paperwork, strict debt guidelines in Europe: Of course, all of that is additionally marketing campaign assist to your personal celebration, for Olaf Scholz or probably for one more social democratic candidate, relying on the place the controversy leads. And this assist works all the higher the extra it comes within the type of pure factual coverage, maybe much more so within the Finance Ministry than within the Chancellery, which just lately obtained tousled in a debate about election dates. “In the Ministry of Finance I have to concentrate on factual tasks and am not allowed to campaign at all,” asserts Kukies. “I’m not running for a mandate and I don’t have any party function either.”

But after all, talking solely from the attitude of an expert politician, a couple of Bundestag resolutions earlier than the election date could be fairly good. Ultimately, you will need to fight Germany’s weak progress shortly and never sooner or later later. In addition to the contentious concern of chilly development, i.e. the inflation adjustment of the tax price, the brand new minister thought of some different issues that the visitors gentle alliance had already initiated.

“The growth initiative includes many reforms that we can adopt in the remaining time because the federal government has already decided on them in the cabinet and there is a high degree of agreement about their necessity,” he speaks within the route of the Union and the FDP. In addition to the chilly development, he mentions the promotion of e-mobility, higher depreciation choices for firms and better little one profit. “We are talking about billions of dollars with which we can provide targeted support to companies and citizens and give our economy an urgently needed growth stimulus.”

The new division head downplays the truth that he must begin the approaching yr and not using a determined federal finances and that there’ll more than likely be no further finances for the present yr. “We consciously chose the path of transparency. We won’t turn this into a drama along the lines of: If you don’t agree to the supplementary budget, the country will plunge into chaos. There will be no chaos – a supplementary budget is a sensible option with some advantages,” is what he says. The alleged transparency additionally serves as self-assurance: We are ready for something, the Chancellor is not going to throw the nation right into a tailspin by firing Lindner.

However, the minister has already made the primary fake pas, however it didn’t concern the technical points, however the celebration political ones. He spoke fairly overtly about the truth that the Chancellor had requested him the day earlier than Lindner was fired whether or not he could be accessible as a alternative if the worst got here to the worst, as an ex-banker on the bench, so to talk. The FDP noticed its accusation confirmed that Scholz had rigorously ready the coalition break. “There had previously been increasing signs that the FDP was planning to leave the government,” counters Kukies. “We had to prepare sensibly for this option, even if we would have preferred that we had found an agreement.”

According to Kukies, the truth that there was no private handover within the minister’s workplace on the day of the change of workplace had nothing to do with the massive bang the earlier night; it merely did not work out in time. “The appointment with the Federal President was pushed back, then I had to go straight to the Bundestag to be sworn in, and that took even longer than planned. Then Christian Lindner said: Come on, then we’ll just talk on the phone.”

From Kukies’ viewpoint, this doesn’t contain a return to the distant Juso period of red-green balloons. He believes that the quiet alliance between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP in his dwelling state of Rhineland-Palatinate is “an indication that a traffic light could definitely have worked.”