The leaders of the SPD, the Greens and the Left want to enter into coalition negotiations

The top candidates from the SPD, the Greens and the Left in Berlin agreed on a 19-point plan in their final exploratory round. The corresponding exploratory paper will now be submitted to the respective state party committees, said SPD top candidate Franziska Giffey on Friday afternoon in the Kurt-Schumacher-Haus in Berlin-Wedding.

She spoke of a “good conclusion” of the explorations, all those involved had “moved a lot, for me that is the basis for future cooperation,” said Giffey. The aim is to fill the targeted new beginning with life, “that will be our joint task,” said the SPD country chief. The focus of the joint projects is climate protection, affordable housing, more staff for the police and authorities as well as social cohesion in the city, she emphasized.

The start of the negotiations is planned for next Wednesday or Thursday, as the SPD chairwoman Franziska Giffey said. First of all, the budget should be discussed in order to be able to cope with the project, said Giffey. Before that, party committees still have to approve what is considered certain. The meetings of the state boards of the SPD and the Left, as well as the state committee of the Greens, are planned for Monday, and as soon as the party bodies approve coalition negotiations, these could begin next week.

Also the Green top candidate Bettina Jarasch and the left top candidate Klaus Lederer emphasized after the final exploratory round that they had had intensive and good discussions. “If the spirit of this third exploratory round is the spirit that will carry us through the coalition negotiations and the next five years, then I am very confident,” said Jarasch. The talks were based “on the common will to achieve success.”

Lederer also spoke of “good advice” and announced modernizations and investments in the respective infrastructure, especially in the public sector and in the hospital sector.

The negotiators from all three parties had discussed the exploratory paper for more than seven hours. New in comparison to the line in the previous coalition is the entry into the civil service of teachers in order to meet the teacher shortage. Temporary video surveillance of streets or squares with a lot of crime is also one of the points on which there was no mutual agreement in the legislative period that is now coming to an end.

After the successful referendum for the expropriation of large housing companies, the SPD, the Greens and the Left want one Set up a commission of experts to examine the “possibilities, ways and prerequisites for implementation”. Within a year, the commission, in which the initiators of the referendum should also be represented, should draw up recommendations for the next steps of the Senate. The issue is one of the most controversial between the three parties.

New accents are planned in transport policy, for example more attention to the expansion of the subway. According to the Green top candidate Bettina Jarasch, climate protection is defined as a joint task of all Senate administrations, and there is to be a “Climate Council”.

To finance local public transport, the parties want to develop a third pillar in addition to income from tickets and government subsidies. Details are still open, including the question of whether it might be a city toll. The controversial extension of the Autobahn 100 to Treptower Park is to be brought to a “qualified conclusion with a traffic concept”.

Broadcast: evening show, October 15, 2021, 7:30 p.m.