The leading parties in Berlin met on Friday for exploratory talks. These were the first official meetings after last Sunday’s repeat elections. The CDU had invited the SPD to the campus of the European Energy Forum for 10 a.m. and the Greens for 2:30 p.m. CDU and SPD talked an hour longer than planned. After that, CDU leader Kai Wegner spoke of “good and very serious talks”. He then welcomed the Greens delegation by saying that the talks should be about the climate – “about that in the coalition, but also about that in the city”.
The CDU was able to unite over 28 percent of the votes on Sunday and emerged as the winner of the election. The SPD and the Greens each received a good 18 percent, with the Social Democrats currently leading the Greens by 113 votes. Nevertheless, it is more than uncertain whether the Christian Democrats, with their top candidate Kai Wegner, will be able to nominate the next governing mayor. The city is currently governed by an alliance of SPD, Greens and Left Party led by Franziska Giffey. This coalition together has enough votes to continue governing.
The CDU will therefore have to make extensive concessions in order to win over one of the partners. This is also considered particularly difficult because the party and its top candidate Wegner conducted an extremely polarizing election campaign, especially after the riots on New Year’s Eve. The top candidate of the Greens, Bettina Jarasch, spoke of a “tough and also aggressive” debate before the election. There were also injuries at the SPD.
The Green Youth categorically rejects Wegner
In terms of content, the Social Democrats would be the better partner from the point of view of the CDU. When it comes to transport policy and questions of internal security, both parties are even closer than their coalition partners, the SPD and the Greens. This also applies in part to housing policy, although the SPD base, unlike the CDU, also sympathizes with the referendum for the expropriation of large real estate groups. On the other hand, it is considered difficult to find a basis of trust for cooperation; this has only worked tolerably well in past grand coalitions.
CDU candidate Wegner, on the other hand, has repeatedly praised the good contacts with the co-group leader of the Greens. However, his harsh attacks on the Greens during the election campaign have damaged the mood at the base of both parties for a long time. Since then, at the latest, many party members have considered a black-green alliance to be hardly possible; the Green Youth has already clearly spoken out against it. “It is very clear to us that Kai Wegner, who prefers to have racist first name debates and wants to abolish an anti-discrimination law, should not be the governing mayor of Berlin,” said spokeswoman Luna Evans.
The exploratory talks are taking place with certain reservations, as the official final result of the election will not be published until February 27th. There may still be changes of a few hundred votes. This happens regularly in elections and is usually irrelevant for the outcome of an election. In Berlin, however, the SPD currently only has an extremely narrow lead over the Greens. Should the Social Democrats fall to third place, it would be the end of Franziska Giffey as Governing Mayor. After 22 years in power, it would even be conceivable that the SPD would go into opposition.