From Hildburg Bruns
The Jusos’ no to a GroKo as the new Berlin government has been heavily criticized within the party.
“The Juso resolutions are damaging to the party because they would help some hypocritical Greens who would like to form a coalition with the CDU themselves,” tweeted former school senator Jürgen Zöllner (77, SPD).
Professor Jürgen Zöllner (77, SPD) was Senator for Education from 2006 to 2011 Photo: picture alliance/dpa
SPD leader Franziska Giffey (44) also expects this development: “There is no need to continue the coalition with the Greens and the Left if the coalition talks between the CDU and SPD fail. Instead, it would result in a coalition between the CDU and the Greens.”
Nevertheless, the young SPD are fighting vehemently against an alliance with the CDU and for Red-Green-Red. The vote for NoGroKo was almost unanimous at the weekend. The Jusos make up around 5,000 of the 18,800 SPD members in Berlin who will vote on the finished coalition paper in April.
Berlin’s Juso boss Sinem Tasan-Funke (29) announced the biggest campaign the SPD has ever seen. The #NoGroKo mission started on the Internet on Sunday: lists of signatures, argumentation aids, flyer templates. You want to talk to as many members as possible (motto: “It’s not just the boys who think it sucks”).
Large majority of Jusos vote for NOGroKo Photo: Hildburg Bruns
Exploratory participant Michael Biel (42) presented at the Juso conference why it hadn’t worked out with the Greens in the preliminary talks – without effect: After that, the Greens didn’t want a 29-euro ticket AB for everyone (only for 16 to 18-year-old). Also don’t increase the annual budget for the construction of 5,000 social housing units to 1.2 billion euros and don’t bring the Charité subsidiaries back into the company.
The CDU/SPD working groups will start their talks this week. The content should be unified at the end of March. As early as Wednesday, Giffey and the soon-to-be ruler Kai Wegner (50, CDU) want to present the preamble to the coalition agreement – the big why and where the GroKo is going.
► There has already been a NoGroKo campaign
Only 20.5 percent was the worst SPD result in a federal election in 2017. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier turned the comrades towards GroKo. New Juso boss Kevin Kühnert (then 28) from Tempelhof started the #NoGroKo campaign, which toured 22 cities for several weeks. The result on March 4, 2018: 78 percent of the comrades voted, 66 percent yes to the grand coalition. Kühnert is now in the Bundestag and became Secretary General of the federal SPD at the end of 2021.
► The SPD members have already voted several times on coalitions
In recent years, the comrades have repeatedly been called upon to take part in member surveys and votes.
2019: Member vote for party chairmanship at federal level – Saskia Esken (61) and Norbert Walter-Borjans (70) won.
2018: Member vote GroKo coalition agreement (federal) – 66 percent YES.
2015: Membership survey on the election program (Berlin) – including for the headscarf ban, against the sale of cannabis.
2014: Members’ vote on the successor to Klaus Wowereit – 59 percent for Michael Müller (58).
2013: Members’ vote on the coalition agreement (federal government) – 76 percent YES to GroKo.