Liberal leader has big ambitions but faces questions about his credentials.
Christian Lindner, the German liberal leader seen as the country’s
likely next finance minister, has faced a barrage of criticism in recent
days from prominent economists who warn that his hawkish fiscal views
represent a mortal threat to the euro.
But an examination of Lindner’s CV (a fraught exercise in German politics) raises a different — if no less alarming — question: Is he even qualified for the job?
Lindner leads the Free Democrats (FDP), the smallest of the three
parties currently in talks to form a new German government. Even before
September’s general election, Lindner signaled that he wanted the
finance ministry. His party declined to comment on his ambitions for the
post.
The attraction is obvious.
After the chancellor, the finance minister is the most powerful figure in German politics, overseeing a budget that surged to almost €500 billion for the current year as the country tackled the coronavirus crisis.
On the international stage, the German finance minister has
traditionally been a force to be reckoned with, whether he was called
Olaf Scholz, Wolfgang Schäuble or Peer Steinbrück. (No woman has ever
held the post.)
It’s no accident that the roster of former German finance ministers
reads like a Who’s Who of the leading lights of Germany’s postwar
politics. Nearly all of them, including former Chancellor Helmut
Schmidt, have had substantial executive experience, either as ministers,
state premiers or mayors, prior to ascending to the post.
And then there’s Lindner.
Lindner, who was so young when he began his political career in the
FDP that older colleagues called him "Bambi," is without question one of
Germany’s standout political talents. Yet beyond the title of his
university master’s thesis
— "Tax competition and fiscal equalization. Can the financial
constitution be reformed?" — it’s not clear what would qualify him to be
finance minister.
Lindner, who studied political science and sells himself as a
champion for entrepreneurs, has spent nearly his entire career working
as a local politician, MP or party functionary. He’s never been a mayor,
a state premier, a minister or even a deputy minister.
His greatest accomplishment would appear to be marketing his party
and himself. In 2017, Lindner, who became FDP leader several years
earlier after the party failed to win enough votes to get into
parliament, led the liberals from the brink of oblivion back into the
Bundestag.
The turnaround gave him near-total authority over the party, which
for all intents and purposes became a one-man show. Furthering that
impression was Lindner’s omnipresence on Germany’s evening talk-show
circuit, where he became the go-to man for a free-market critique of
Angela Merkel’s government, the Greens and everything in between.
Money talks
The media appearances enabled Lindner — who as a young consultant
liked to flash his success behind the wheel of a black Porsche — to
build a lucrative sideline as a public speaker.
In addition to his MP salary, he received more than €470,000 during
the last parliamentary term for activities such as giving speeches to
banks, insurers and other groups, according to abgeordnetenwatch.de, a German transparency watchdog.
Though communication is a useful skill for a finance minister, other
qualities are arguably more important — like balancing the books.
By that score, Lindner, who has vowed to reactivate Germany’s “debt
brake” (i.e. a rule that means no budget deficits) and demand stricter
fiscal discipline in the eurozone, has a mixed record.
By his own telling, his first company, a PR consulting firm, was a huge success. The same can’t be said for his second venture, Moomax, which he co-founded in 2000.
A software firm seeking to tap into the then-booming dot.com scene,
it received nearly €2 million in funding from a government-sponsored
venture fund. Lindner ran the firm for about a year before resigning.
Moomax, like many start-ups at the time, went under before it really
even got off the ground.
Like any smart politician trying to paper over failures, Lindner has
sought to cast the episode as a valuable learning experience.
That hasn’t always been easy, in large part because for Lindner, it remains a sensitive subject.
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