German Minister-President Daniel Günther of the CDU finds the political dealings in Berlin off-putting. The way in which confidentiality is disregarded here, the way only one looks for ways to put others in a bad light, “really disgusts me, to some extent” said Günther in a podcast of the Funke Media Group.
For him, it is always a very good feeling to return to Kiel, because there, politics is made in a way he would also wish for in Berlin. As an example, Günther mentioned the coalition negotiations between the Union, FDP, and Greens after the 2017 federal election. He shudders when remembering it. In all other social spheres, Günther says, “everyone would say, ‘I would never work together with people who behave so disrespectfully.'” In Berlin, however, it is common practice for people to behave in such a way. “And that’s why it’s really a horror for me, to some extent, to experience how politics is made in Berlin.”
Günther also warned against underestimating the consequences of this coarsening: “I believe that if we don’t hear the alarm as democratic parties, that we must adopt a different way of dealing with each other in Berlin, in order not to let radical forces grow stronger, then we must not wonder if the well is drained further and further.