DÜSSELDORF/ESSEN (dpa-AFX) – The leadership of the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU met in Düsseldorf on Sunday to vote on coalition negotiations with the Greens. The basis for the decision is a twelve-page exploratory paper in which the two parties have summarized common goals.
At a small party conference of the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia, which started two hours before the CDU, their state chairman Mona Neubaur advocated entering into alliance talks. “What now lies ahead of us as an opportunity is that we shake hands with a CDU over a bridge and find cross-camp solutions,” she said in front of around 100 delegates in Essen.
In contrast to the state party council of the Greens, which meets in public, the extended state executive of the CDU advises behind closed doors in the Düsseldorf party headquarters. State party leader and Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst said when asked how hard he still had to campaign for official coalition negotiations with the Greens in his 100-strong leadership circle: “Let’s see.”
Decisions by the top bodies of both parties were expected in the early evening. Black and green is considered the most likely option for the next government in NRW. It would be the first coalition of this kind for the most populous federal state.
Both parties emerged from the state elections on May 15 with gains. The CDU is the clear winner with 35.7 percent. The SPD, on the other hand, slipped to its worst result in a state election in North Rhine-Westphalia with 26.7 percent. The Greens were able to almost triple their share of the vote compared to 2017 to 18.2 percent and ended up in third place./beg/DP/he