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The year 2020 is over. But it is reflected once again – of all places in the German Bundestag cafe. Here the greats of politics involuntarily interpret a chamber work as a review of the year.
Jens Spahn looks exhausted. The Federal Minister of Health rummages through his cake on a white ceramic plate in front of him and looks at his iPhone. It is an afternoon, at the end of November, and Spahn is sitting in what might be the last café open in Germany: it is next to the plenary hall of the German Bundestag, in the Reichstag building.
On receipts printed here, the “cafeteria” is officially referred to because drinks and snacks must be picked up at a counter and cannot be taken home. A cappuccino costs 2.50 euros.
But because most of the food consumption facilities in the Bundestag are closed, federal legislators come here in the last so-called “weeks of sessions” of the year, every time the Bundestag meets.
An oppressive stalemate
Anyone who spends a little time in this café reveals the various facets of German politics. The involuntary performance took place at the end of November, but it looked like a chamber piece as a review of the year.
The entire federal government is reflected in Jens Spahn, who sits in the middle of the room with his legs stretched far away: in February, like many, he still looked slightly mocking at China, where a lockdown was imposed on the country. Shortly afterwards, Corona arrived in the Federal Republic. Spahn arranged the “shutdown” of the country, making it appear that Germany’s main computer has shut down. In truth, it was an oppressive stalemate: cinemas, restaurants, theaters closed; one country paused.
Jens Spahn continues to work on his iPhone, rarely looking up. Of course, you would like to know what the Minister of Health is actually writing: Are you eagerly asking for FFP2 masks? Are you texting with the founder of Biontech? Or is he going to buy another villa?
Lindner is alone
The truth is that the pandemic acted as a professional catapult for Spahn. As Federal Minister of Health, he suddenly held one of the most important cabinet positions and had to control the pandemic. He was quite successful: he distracted himself from some mistakes with a rhetoric of resolved crisis. At times he looked more like Markus Söder, less like his tandem partner in the race for the CDU presidency, Armin Laschet.
Enter Christian Lindner: The head of FDP walks into the little cafe, buys a Coke, and sits at the table on the far left of the wall, facing the next wall. Lindner is alone.
FDP politician Linda Teuteberg has taken a seat on the diametrically opposite side of the room. Couldn’t be further from Lindner at the cafe, she had a lively conversation with her conversation partner.
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The FDP comes and goes between five and six percent in the polls, and perhaps that is due to the division between the two. In the summer, Linder decided that he wanted to fire his secretary general Teuteberg, probably due to poor poll numbers.
But the liberal had not lost his sense of humor. At the party congress he said goodbye to Teuteberg with the words that during the time they worked together – hoho – “the day started about 300 times together”, including a break for art. Laughter, of course from the men, at the party congress, Teuteberg’s stone face. Then Lindner put things in perspective, not wanting to say anything, of course. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer will likely be the next chancellor before the old man’s joke wears off from the FDP.
Top politicians like Lindner and Spahn are often surrounded by employees, here they are alone. You sit at the square plastic tables, each about 70 by 70 centimeters high. Quiet conversations are only interrupted from time to time with a gong. Then all MEPs enter the Chamber to vote.
2020 demystified populism
Alexander Gauland has now sat behind the table where Jens Spahn was sitting before. Spahn has already disappeared again, but Gauland has something important to discuss. Then put their heads together with two confidants, nobody cares about the distance The main thing is that nobody is listening.
There is a lot to talk about. 2020 was not a good year for the right wing, populism around the world was disenchanted by Corona – countries like the United States and Brazil, where presidents sit with their mouths but without a crisis strategy, mourn hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Gauland wears light gray shoes that you can slip on, and carefully placed his feet side by side under the table during the conversation. His party painstakingly tried to hijack the crown protests as it did in 2015 with the Pegida movement. This time it went wrong. But in the meantime, the AfD is already too busy with itself, because in the party some people just cling to the mantle of the bourgeoisie, which is already being pulled by most of the party’s friends.
Everything is open
Gauland, the gray eminence in the background, works cautiously and gently to push the party millimeter by millimeter even deeper into the right corner than it already is. The performance ends, the bell rings again and the MPs are back on their way.
And the year ended, the performance in the chamber theater of the cafe ended, and everything is open: whether Christian Lindner will even stroll through the corridors of the Reichstag from September 2021 is unclear due to the miserable situation of his party. What Jens Spahn will do professionally in the fall is even more uncertain. And: if 79-year-old Alexander Gauland wants to return to the Bundestag for a whole legislative period, he has not even wanted to answer clearly himself recently.
