Ricarda Lang is the “Rising Star of the Year” – what?

The collective shock of the Greens and SPD over their dramatic defeat in the European elections had probably not yet been overcome when a grotesque report appeared in the news. Green Party leader Ricarda Lang was named “Rising Star of the Year,” it was reported, and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) was named “Politician of the Year.”

Excuse me? May I ask how exactly the award winners earned their laurels? As consolation for the shame of being part of a coalition that regularly attracts attention through poor governance?

In fact, it is a political award in superlatives – just after the biggest electoral defeat for the Chancellor’s party and its Green coalition partner. One wonders how much self-referentiality is actually possible in political Berlin, which is confronted with the bitter reality every day.

But just at this really delicate moment for democracy, which has already led some to call for new elections in Germany, the magazine “Politics and Communication” and the Quadriga University presented the “Politics Awards” with which the politicians who were almost voted out of office can now adorn themselves.

It is safe to assume that the organisers knew the date of the European elections before scheduling their awards ceremony. Of course, no one knew the exact outcome beforehand.

But in these crisis-ridden times, when the traffic light coalition is fighting its way from one quarrel to the next, one really doesn’t have to have prophetic gifts to realise that such an award could go very wrong when elections have just taken place across Europe.

For those who have forgotten what is at stake because of all the award-winning excitement: the Social Democrats are going through the biggest crisis in their history and cannot find a way to reconnect with their old clientele.

This field has long been occupied by the AfD, to which voters remain loyal despite all the facts, even when it creates scandals on a scale that would have completely destroyed any other party shortly before an election.

At the same time, the Greens are more unpopular than ever and have missed every opportunity to generate from the green-yellow alliance of the traffic light coalition precisely the progress that was initially expected: thinking about environmental protection and growth together.

The situation of the traffic light partners could hardly be more precarious. And what do they do? They circle around themselves as if there were no tomorrow – enclosed in a political bubble that completely clouds their view of reality.

It is of no use when a veteran politician like Edmund Stoiber, who has also been awarded a prize for his life’s work, calls for a vote of confidence in the Chancellor and describes it as a “question of hygiene”. This raises doubts about the CSU politician’s ideas about hygiene in particular; the country is not served by such nonsense. What is needed now more urgently than ever is political seriousness – and solutions.