What Meloni and Schlein can learn from Merz's common sense model

Right or common sense? While waiting to see if Friedrich Merz will have the strength to be a great chancellor, at the helm of a fabulous right, at the head of a screaming majority, there is a useful experiment that deserves to be done to try to understand if in the dream book of the great German coalition there is some food for thought useful for reflecting on the future of Italy . The answer to this question, which is yes, can be found in the one hundred and forty-six pages of the coalition program signed by the CDU, the SPD and the CSU, entitled “Verantwortung für Deutschland”, “Responsibility for Germany”, which constitutes a formidable dose of reality, pragmatism and reformist compromise against the old and new populisms of the right and the left.

The meaning of the German coalition government program – a program that has been talked about in recent days only for background reasons, with great indignation on the part of the center-right because of a scoop made by the Welt that discovered that in the German government pact a reference to Italy as a privileged partner together with France to build a new Europe was removed – is to try to find a useful solution to combat economic decline and the advance of extremism by offering citizens an alternative to a policy based on crude propaganda , on the nationalist shortcut and on the culture of the scapegoat. And in doing so, the majority led by Merz, a majority that has the not bad task of straightening the path of a country that has based its fortune over the last twenty years on two assets that no longer exist, low-cost gas from Russia and advantageous exports to China , speaks the language of truth on a multitude of issues. Europe, defense, environment, taxes, work, immigration .

The coalition led by Merz writes – Merz who as you know will be in Rome today and before participating in the papal coronation will be received at Palazzo Chigi by Giorgia Meloni – that Russian aggression is not a regional conflict but a systemic challenge to the entire Western democratic model and to the foundations of international coexistence and for this reason it is necessary to declare towards Ukraine a support “not subject to an arbitrary time limit”, which will last as long as necessary, which will be accompanied by the sending of modern weapons, ammunition, defense technologies and anti-aircraft systems and which will go in parallel with Germany's commitment to support Kyiv in advancing in the process of accession to the European Union. Defending Ukraine means defending ourselves, says the large German coalition, and with the same language of reality Merz & Co. address other issues .

On immigration, no xenophobic extremism and no humanitarian extremism , and therefore limiting family reunification only to those with subsidiary protection, faster expulsions, also through agreements with third countries, selective control of reception, and those who refuse a job offer will lose benefits, and stop welfare abuses by those who arrive from other EU countries only to receive subsidies. Sovereignty also means this: firmness in terms of controls and repatriations, strengthening of Europe's external borders and cooperation with countries of origin and "orderly and realistic management of migration", which must distinguish between those who have the right to international protection and those who do not. Is it right-wing? No, it's just common sense.

The same goes, after all, for energy and environmental policies . The coalition is aiming for decarbonization, of course, but it is doing so by betting on capitalism, growth, industrial tools, mixed technologies, innovation, without ideology, offering a third way between green activism and Trumpian denialism, thus focusing on market incentives and international cooperation, rather than on bans and impositions. The principle is that of the so-called “polluter pays”, the principle of the polluter pays, and is expressed through mechanisms that encourage companies to innovate rather than penalizing them a priori. The goal of climate neutrality by 2045 is confirmed, but the government program introduces margins of temporal flexibility in the most complex sectors (steel, chemicals, construction), rejecting the logic of rigid sectoral objectives, favoring a global evaluation of the results and introducing a “reality clause” that allows adjustments if technological or international conditions change. Is it right-wing or is it common sense?

The program proposes creative ideas that deserve to find space in the newspapers at least as much as the plans to increase military spending have and that deserve not to end up in a box on page sixty because it is from a detail that the future of a country is decided: its ability to innovate . The coalition therefore introduces a national innovation fund (Deutschlandfonds) of 100 billion (10 public plus 90 private), which will finance start-ups, scale-ups, frontier technologies and digitalization. It foresees a strong increase in public investments in research and development (R&D), with the declared objective of exceeding the threshold of 3.5 percent of GDP (currently around 3 percent), it also proposes the tax exemption of profits reinvested in research and development , with the expansion of the tax credit for innovation and the simplification of the rules for innovative start-ups and aims to make Germany more attractive for international researchers and entrepreneurs by simplifying visas and academic recognition.

The coalition proposes a “2030 debureaucratization” plan , with the concrete goal of reducing administrative burdens by 25 percent by the end of the legislature, and the measures include everything: the complete digitalization of authorizations and permits, the introduction of maximum terms for the Public Administration to respond (with automatic silent consent), a systematic review of existing regulations, to eliminate superfluous or obsolete rules. And alongside this, a plan of tax and training incentives is also planned for those who hire qualified workers , a strengthening of dual apprenticeships and greater openness to qualified immigration , with fast-track procedures for the recognition of foreign qualifications.

On the labor front, the government raises the minimum wage to 15 euros per hour , promises a structural reduction in taxes and bureaucracy for small and medium-sized businesses , and introduces tax incentives for those who work more and for those who hire . In short: a minimum wage, yes, but also a bet on productivity , and it is those who work more who will ultimately pay less taxes . Right or common sense?

The German majority, then, chooses without embarrassment to explicitly focus on globalization , on the opening of markets, on economic freedom, and for this reason Merz & Co. propose an "open but regular" trade policy, with new agreements brought forward by the European Union: Chile, Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and then India, the United States .

More defense to be less vulnerable. More market to be more protected. More productivity to be more remunerated. More border controls to be more sovereign. More Europe to be freer. The program of the German government coalition is a dream book , for those who dream of a policy dominated more by the culture of solutions than by the logic of scalping, and if some observer or politician of the left reading between the lines of Merz's program were to identify too many right-wing arguments, too little humanitarianism, too little fight against inequalities, that someone on the left should perhaps ask himself when exactly the left transformed common sense ideas into right-wing ideas. Long live the Merz coalition which, background aside, remains a possible antidote, and one to be studied, to right- and left-wing populisms throughout Europe.

More on these topics: