One can imagine Olaf Scholz as a fundamentally peaceful person. A shaky mobile phone video recently showed how he formed a snowball in the garden of Schloss Meseberg. But then he threw it, Scholz asserted, "as it should be for a chancellor – at no one".

His cabinet had met in the seclusion of Brandenburg to talk to each other in peace and quiet, away from everyday politics. One could also say: beyond the everyday fights and skirmishes, which the traffic light has been dedicated to for weeks, preferably among themselves.

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