Comment on negotiations between CDU/CSU and SPD: Three pages are enough.

Now everything has to happen very quickly. So quickly that the CDU /CSU and SPD may want to use the old Bundestag to make life easier for their future coalition in the new Bundestag. The issue is again the debt brake.

But why should the factions of the current Bundestag pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the future government, which must be supported by the new Bundestag? Nevertheless, they are the same hot chestnuts that the future Bundestag must pull out of the fire. There is no escape from the world situation.

However, the debt brake should not be dealt with in a rush. Before any decision on a reform is made, the Bundestag must know for what purpose it should be relaxed.

Friedrich Merz and his coalition partner must find a way to reduce defense spending that is also possible with a debt brake - the special fund is a viable option. However, the Basic Law must also be amended for this. If the 20th Bundestag is still capable of taking action, the opportunity should not be missed.

Because it is true that everything now has to happen quickly. It would therefore be desirable if the CDU/ CSU and SPD could dispense with the rituals of coalition formation that have become commonplace over the past twenty years. Months of negotiations over bullet points are superfluous - bullet points that are worthless anyway because times change or because the coalition partners start all over again when it comes to legislation.

The traffic light government should be warning enough. Its coalition agreement was as superfluous as a wart, and ended up in the shredder of the turning point after just a few weeks, and who knows, maybe the coalition would still be there if it hadn't constantly got caught up in the details of its agreement.

It doesn't have to be like it was decades ago, when two A4 pages of a coalition agreement with 20 points and a handshake were enough to form a stable and productive alliance. But a look at history might help to understand that it is not the 170 pages of meticulous technocracy that lead to the success of a government.

The "contract" (which is not one, even if it calls itself one) is all too often the continuation of the electoral campaigns by other means, wastes time and energy and ends in too many formulaic compromises that are not sustainable. The dramatic times in which we live need something different.

There are three issues that will challenge a Merz government: Ukraine, economy, migration. Security and defense depend on Ukraine; growth, climate, social issues depend on the economy; the future of Europe depends on migration. Everything else is secondary or tertiary. Two pages may not be enough for a coalition agreement, but three pages should be enough. That would be a progressive coalition.