As of: 09/28/2021 3:59 p.m.
Shortly before their first parliamentary group meeting, the SPD invited the Greens and FDP to explorations. One is already ready to talk this week. Green group leader Hofreiter considers a traffic light alliance to be more likely than Jamaica.
Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter considers a coalition with the SPD and FDP to be more likely than an alliance with the Union and the Liberals. “We will of course talk to all democratic parties,” said Hofreiter before a meeting of the Green parliamentary group. But it is more likely “that there will be a traffic light at the end”.
In the past 16 years – during the reign of Chancellor Angela Merkel – there has been a lot of reform backlog in Germany, said Hofreiter, who cited deficiencies in digitization as an example. “We really have to get a modern, functioning state.” His party wants to participate in a government that is “not a government of the lowest common denominator”.
Two days after the federal election, the parties meet for parliamentary groups
Klaus Weidmann, ARD Berlin, daily news 12:00 p.m., September 28, 2021
SPD wants to sound out this week
Today most of the newly elected parliamentary groups come together for their first sessions. First the SPD met in the morning, followed by the left-wing parliamentary group and the Greens. In the afternoon, the members of the Union also meet. The FDP parliamentary group had already met on Monday afternoon, the AfD will not follow until Wednesday.
Shortly before the beginning of the SPD parliamentary group meeting, parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich said that the SPD was ready to start explorations with the Greens and FDP this week. “We have invited the Greens and the FDP to hold exploratory talks with us this week, if they want,” said Mützenich. “We are ready to have not only quick, but also reliable discussions. If there are problems, they will be solved on the track.”
With a view to the failed exploratory talks about a possible Jamaica coalition after the federal election in 2017, Mützenich said: “I think both small parties have to realize that the spectacle that they sometimes did on balconies four years ago is not Tasks. “
Greens and FDP want to talk to each other
Before there can be talks with the SPD, however, the Greens and the FDP want to discuss possible overlaps with each other. Green politician Cem Özdemir told the news portal t-online that these preliminary investigations were about “creating a level of trust and preventing the two larger parties, the Greens and the FDP, from playing off against each other.” Özdemir sees the greatest similarities with the FDP in social politics and digitization, he expects the greatest difficulties in climate protection.
According to a representative study by infratest dimap for the ARD Germany trend A majority of 55 percent of citizens prefer an SPD-led coalition with the Greens and the FDP. In the survey, only 33 percent were in favor of a coalition of CDU / CSU, Greens and FDP. However, the majority of the supporters of the FDP favor a Jamaica alliance with the Union (51 percent) instead of a traffic light coalition (41 percent).
The parliamentary manager of the FDP, Marco Buschmann, then also called on the Union to quickly clarify its readiness for possible coalition talks. All parties should be “able to speak” by the end of the week, he says on Deutschlandfunk. “It’s Jamaica and the traffic light on the table now.” Different signals are coming from the Union. Some wanted to rule, others didn’t. The Union must clarify this now. Buschmann emphasized that the aim of the FDP was a “coalition with ambitions” that would not end after two years.
Habeck calls Vice Chancellor question “irrelevant”
Meanwhile, media reports caused a stir, according to which the Greens chairmen Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck should have already agreed on which of them would take over the post of vice chancellor in a possible government coalition. According to the reports, Baerbock, who had previously confessed to her own mistakes in the election campaign, wants to let Habeck go first.
Habeck now made it clear that the Greens only want to decide on their personnel line-up after coalition negotiations if they participate in government. Before the parliamentary group meeting, he said that “of course at the end of such a process on content and personnel – the entire tableau – the party would decide on a party congress or a member survey”. At this point in time, the question of who among the Greens will take over the post of Vice Chancellor is “completely irrelevant”. “We don’t even have a chancellor.”