Federal election 2025
Criticism of Söder after a plea for a new grand coalition
CSU leader Markus Söder: “We certainly don’t want black-green.” photo
© Peter Kneffel/dpa
The CSU leader can imagine a new coalition between the Union and the SPD – albeit without Chancellor Scholz. That would affect the Greens and the FDP. Their reaction is not long in coming.
With a plea for a new grand coalition between the Union and the SPD after the 2025 federal election, the CSU chairman Markus Söder received sharp criticism from the traffic light parties.
“If you look at the central areas of politics, from economic to foreign policy to migration policy, then you know: You can’t make a state with the Greens and you can’t make a state with Olaf Scholz either,” the Bavarian Prime Minister told the “Welt on Sunday”. If the current polls remain the same, Scholz will lose the election. “Then there will be an SPD without Scholz.”
For Söder, the incumbent Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) could then become the new strong man for the Social Democrats. With him “as a junior partner, more can be imagined,” emphasized Söder. “In any case, we don’t want black and green.”
Habeck: Groko is the cause of the problems
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck immediately rejected the proposal. “Of course, there are lots of problems, but the Groko is not the answer to the problems, it is the cause of the problems that Germany has,” said the Green politician on Saturday in Berlin. The Green Party leader Ricarda Lang made the same statement on the X platform (formerly Twitter) and added: “But Söder doesn’t care because he only cares about one thing: his ego.”
Criticism also came from FDP chairman Christian Lindner: “If Markus Söder says today that the future perspective for Germany is a new grand coalition, then I am reminding you of the results of the last grand coalition,” said the Federal Finance Minister at the Liberal party conference in Berlin.
Alliance between the Union and the SPD is mathematically possible
According to the polls, a CDU/CSU/SPD coalition would currently be possible. In the Sunday trend of the opinion research institute Insa for “Bild am Sonntag”, the Union (29 percent) and the SPD (16 percent) together come to 45 percent. The AfD has 18, the Greens have 13, the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) has 7, the Left has 4 percent. Even if the FDP got into the Bundestag with 5 percent, the black-red coalition would have a narrow majority.
Habeck said: “All the problems we have at the moment are problems that the grand coalition left us, all problems.” In 2022, the gas storage facilities were empty, Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin was misjudged, the energy transition was not making progress, the grand coalition did nothing to combat the labor shortage, and there was no sensible immigration policy.
“And within the Groko, the biggest problem bear was the CSU.” The fact that she, of all people, who is responsible for the foreign toll, the most expensive possible network expansion and the prevention of any constructive politics, “dares to say how this country should be governed can only be tolerated with humor,” said Habeck.
Söder’s categorical rejection of the Greens is also not a consensus in the Union. The CDU leadership views this position critically, as it would limit the Union’s room for maneuver in negotiations.