Formation of government in Berlin
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The SPD and the Greens are exploring further in two three-way constellations
Switching to traffic lights or continuing red-red-green – the exploratory commissions of the SPD and the Greens decided on these two options on Friday. Opinions differ as to who should become the third coalition partner in Berlin.
The SPD and the Greens in Berlin will go into the next round of explorations together. The top candidates from both parties, Franziska Giffey and Bettina Jarasch, said this to journalists on Friday.
On Monday, a good two weeks after the House of Representatives election, according to Giffey, the SPD first invites the FDP and the Greens to a first three-way discussion. On Tuesday, there will be a conversation with the left and the Greens.
Giffey made it clear that she prefers a traffic light coalition – in addition to the SPD and the Greens, also the FDP. Jarasch, on the other hand, affirmed that the Greens are counting on a continuation of the previous coalition with the SPD and the Left. “Unfortunately we have not yet been able to come to an agreement with the SPD on who should be the third party on our side,” said Jarasch.
Apparently heated debates internally
The traffic light would be anything but Jarasch’s wish constellation. Before and after the election, the Greens had always spoken out in favor of a continuation of the red-green-red alliance with the SPD and the left. Even after the last individual sounding with the Liberals on Thursday, Jarasch said that because of the differences in content, it would be “long distances” that the FDP and the Greens would have to go in order to govern together. Nevertheless, Jarasch now said that the Greens would be happy to explore a traffic light coalition.
The SPD’s decision to explore both three-party alliances had apparently been preceded by fierce internal debates. Originally, the narrow party leadership of the Social Democrats wanted to meet in the morning, as did the Green state executive. Both meetings were then, as it was said, “for organizational reasons”, postponed to the afternoon.
In the run-up, the SPD had repeatedly called for a continuation of the alliance with the Greens and the Left – in addition to four district associations with a large number of members, the Jusos and the Berlin Bundestag member Kevin Kühnert had campaigned for red-green-red.
Franziska Giffey, on the other hand, had already declared a day after the election that a traffic light coalition that was working successfully in Rhineland-Palatinate, for example, could also be a model for Berlin.
Linke is again in favor of red-red-green
The Berlin left has expressed its amazement at the decision of the SPD and the Greens to continue exploring in two three-way formats with the FDP and the left. “We have had very trusting, good discussions with both the SPD and the Greens over the past few days and have already recorded a lot of intersections in terms of content,” said Left State Chairwoman Katina Schubert on Friday. “That is why we are astonished that two coalition options are to be explored further at the same time.”
It also said: “We cannot imagine how the great social and ecological challenges will be mastered with the Berlin FDP.” Urgent investments in the public infrastructure could not be financed with the Berlin FDP, which also wanted to abolish effective tenant protection. The left now wants to advise in its committees “how we will deal with this situation and continue to get involved in finding a coalition”.
The party has been involved in the government in Berlin since 2016, together with the SPD and the Greens.
CDU criticizes “keep it up”
For the CDU, which ended up just behind the Greens in third place in the September 26 election, the only thing that would remain in any case was the role of the opposition. She criticized the agreement between the SPD and the Greens as “keep it up” or “keep it up”. Neither with the traffic lights nor with red-red-green there will be a restart, said party chairman Kai Wegner, according to a message on Friday. The CDU is still available for this.
Wegner recently said that there would only be a “real new start” with a German coalition made up of the SPD, CDU and FDP. He had also stressed the “very, very good spirit” of the talks with the Social Democrats. But a red-black-yellow as well as a Kenya alliance (black-yellow-green) had been considered unlikely from the outset.
After the three-way explorations, at least the SPD wants to decide quickly with whom to start coalition negotiations. According to Interior Senator Andreas Geisel, the course should be set at the end of next week. Giffey stated the goal of having a viable government by the first House of Representatives session on December 21st.