(New: statements by Scholz.)
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The top politicians from the SPD, Greens and FDP continue to struggle for compromises on several controversial issues – according to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but with good progress. There will be “even very, very, very good results,” promised the SPD politician early Tuesday evening in the chancellery. “It will have been worth it,” he said. Good progress is being made, the main issues have long since been resolved. There are still many details that should fit into a good overall work.
The heads of the traffic light parties are negotiating above all more climate protection in the transport sector and faster construction of motorways. The coalition had also recently argued about the replacement of oil and gas heating systems and the financing and design of the planned basic child security. Scholz indicated that there will be some surprising decisions on topics that nobody expected beforehand.
The traffic light coalition started its talks on Sunday evening, but interrupted it in the early afternoon on Monday because Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and several ministers traveled to Rotterdam for German-Dutch government consultations. Scholz reported there of a confidential and friendly atmosphere among the coalition partners.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) spoke on Tuesday morning of a passionate but at the same time controversial debate. The SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch was hopeful: “It is important that we now clarify certain controversial issues in a pointed manner so that we have a template for actually making the progress that is urgently needed in the parliamentary process,” he said on ARD-” morning magazine”. “I am very confident that the three partners will succeed today.”
Union faction leader Friedrich Merz attested to the traffic light coalition being unable to act in view of the talks lasting several days. “We obviously have a government crisis in Germany,” said Merz, who is also CDU chairman, on Tuesday before a meeting of CDU/CSU MPs in Berlin. Chancellor Scholz “at times stood on the sidelines like an uninvolved person and acted as if he had nothing to do with the whole thing,” criticized Merz. He could “hardly imagine that there is still a sufficiently secure basis for the continued existence of this coalition”.
SPD parliamentary group leader Miersch admitted that everyone would have liked faster results. “However, these are very big issues, some of which have not been dealt with in the grand coalition,” he said. FDP parliamentary group leader Konstantin Kuhle criticized the constant dispute. “What I don’t like is if you fundamentally question the cooperation in the coalition. We should all take a look at that, including the FDP,” he said in the ARD “Morgenmagazin”. All three parties tried to get their own profile. His forecast that the committee would be ready by early afternoon did not come true.
The entire opposition from the CDU, CSU, AfD and Left viewed the interruption and the length of the consultations as a disgrace and an indictment. CSU regional group chief Alexander Dobrindt said that with around 17 participants, the body was an “XXL coalition committee – too big, too slow and too tired”. He assumes that the traffic light politicians would have talked about style and less about content in the first few hours.
Scholz justified the long negotiations on Monday with the complexity of the tasks to be solved. It is about the modernization of Germany. “We want to make very clear, concrete statements that will enable us to achieve the necessary pace,” he said in Rotterdam. “The government’s common belief is that the legal rules that we have gradually screwed together over the past few decades do not match the speed that we need today.” He referred to the expansion of renewable energies, the power grid and the transport infrastructure./tam/DP/zb