What is needed is a steadfast freedom party

After almost eight years, the Free Democrats find themselves in the extra-parliamentary opposition at the federal level again. Only 4.3 percent of voters wanted this liberal voice in the Bundestag - more than half have turned away, either because they were not convinced by the FDP 's work in the coalition with the SPD and the Greens or because they resented the traffic light vote. Under the leadership of Christian Lindner, to whom it owed a brilliant return to the Bundestag in 2017, the FDP has clearly found itself caught in the middle. He was the unchallenged leader, most of his fellow campaigners remained pale. His withdrawal leaves behind a disorientated party and a personnel vacuum.

This is demonstrated by the eloquent silence after Lindner's encouraging words on election night, "from tomorrow the flag of the Free Democrats will be raised again." So far only two veterans, Kubicki and Strack-Zimmermann, are prepared to pull the cart out of the mud. Both know that they no longer have the energy and intellectual tools that are needed now.

The younger generation is still ducking away. In Lindner's book about the "shadow years" from 2013 to 2017, they read how much stamina, sacrifice and faith in the liberal cause are needed to regain lost voter trust. At the time, Lindner was also secure enough with a state parliament mandate to take on the task. Today, the FDP is also depleted in the states.

One solution might be a multi-member leadership. But it would need strong, shared convictions about the direction in which things should go. The vote on stricter migration rules called by the Union before the election had revealed cracks in the FDP. They did not stand together when it mattered. During the forced break, the first priority is to clarify which gaps in the FDP's political offering the future will need to be filled. Why does it want to return to the Bundestag? That was the crucial question for Lindner in 2013, and it is again. Because even if the FDP is the only one with "free" in its name, it was and is not the only party that offers liberal policies. That would be bad for democracy.

The CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens claim liberal programs for themselves, and with good reason. The SPD and Greens, for example, have gone above and beyond to defend freedom and to provide military assistance to Ukraine. All three support the social market economy, even though the Social Democrats and Greens strongly distrust the power of competition and the CDU/CSU under Merkel abandoned market principles not only in times of crisis.

With Friedrich Merz, the Union has at least moved programmatically close enough to the core of the social market economy to steal crucial votes from the FDP. As a traffic light party, it sacrificed its convictions in too many bad compromises. The "party of personal responsibility" (Lindner), which assumes that the individual is capable of reason and rightly has a lot of faith in the guiding effect of prices, disappeared behind a wealth of state interventions. It voted in favor of the planned heating law and the almost unconditional citizen's allowance, approved a breach of promise to the economy with the unscheduled minimum wage increase and wanted to shut down the demographic factor that is central to the sustainability of pensions. The self-determination law and the legalization of cannabis were more important to it in socio-political terms than the correction of data protection rules that endanger security and cripple the economy.

In sum, this weighed more heavily on many supporters than the tax relief and the adherence to the debt brake - major liberal concerns: without financial restrictions on the state, private effort and entrepreneurial risk, the driving forces behind innovation, growth and prosperity, are not worthwhile. The FDP was right in the traffic light coalition here. It should not allow itself to be persuaded that a party that fights for performance to be worthwhile is superfluous. The CDU/CSU and SPD cannot be relied upon here.

The minds that will hopefully renew the FDP should also beware of fashionable attributes. Eco-liberal, social-liberal, national-liberal or left-liberal? What is needed is a steadfast freedom party that has a feel for where and how it needs to strengthen the state - and where and how the individual. Liberalism is not a ready-made concept and not a doctrine for egoists. Liberals are concerned about opportunities for the weak and the protection of nature. To this end, they rely on openness to new ways and rules that can correct government errors quickly enough to avoid major damage. This is where the indestructible charm of liberalism lies, and this is where the FDP has a political gap in the market to fill.