Current Events > The fight for Germany's finance ministry

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Both the FDP and the Greens want the finance ministry job. Indeed, in the course of the campaign, FDP leader Christian Lindner made it into a headline issue, warning voters that the choice was between him and Robert Habeck, the Green party chairman and chief architect of the traffic-light coalition.

The FDP and Greens are, in some ways, similar. They are the two parties that contend for young peoples votes. Both take a strong line on civil liberties and have little time for accommodation with Russia and China. Both want to modernise Germanys creaking infrastructure, especially when it comes to tech. But on climate, the Greens are far more serious than the FDP. The two parties also differ on social and economic policy and they differ, too, on Europe.