Managing clashes inside his coalition may well strain Olaf Scholz’s celebrated skills of political mediation
TEN YEARS ago Christoph Holstein received a summons to the office of. Mr Scholz had just led the Social Democrats to a stunning election win in the city-state of Hamburg, and had asked Mr Holstein to serve as government spokesman. He offered two pieces of guidance: “We are never offended, and we are never hysterical.” Mr Holstein, who now sits on Hamburg’s state council, found the advice so useful that it remains pinned up in his office today under the words: “Scholz’s first law”.
Another thread is impatience. Mr Scholz shares Mrs Merkel’s air of serenity and competence. But unlike her, he struggles to mask his disdain for anyone he considers ill-briefed, a trait that can infuriate political antagonists. In Hamburg, aides to Mr Scholz frustrated by dissenters would shut them down by exclaiming “OWD”, short for! . Colleagues swear that Mr Scholz can be hilarious company.
Mr Scholz reads widely and surrounds himself with clever people. He has lately immersed himself in the work of Michael Sandel, an American theorist whose scepticism about meritocracy informs Mr Scholz’s emphasis on “respect”, by which he means a society that finds equal regard for rubbish collectors and CEOs. To give substance to that regard, he plans to increase the minimum wage by 25%, to €12 an hour.
Foreign and European policy will command much of Mr Scholz’s time. But his domestic ambitions will to a considerable extent be focused on climate protection. Managing the transition to a carbon-free future, he says, will be Germany’s biggest industrial test in a century. It will be a political challenge, too.
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