Robert Habeck (Alliance 90/The Greens) already had to make compromises at the beginning of his term of office as Economics Minister. The extension of nuclear power plant lifetimes, the rearmament of the German armed forces in connection with the Russian military invasion of Ukraine and Germany’s dependence on gas supplies from autocratically governed states confronted him and his party, which had not been in government for 16 years, with tough realpolitik challenges. During a carnival parade in Düsseldorf, the float designed by artist Jacques Tilly shown in this depicts Habeck having to “swallow toads,” a German idiom meaning to swallow bitter pills.