In Thuringia, a reform of the constitution is in danger of failing. The state parliament has got stuck again. To ensure that this changes after the state elections, the Left Party is opening up for an alliance with the CDU.
The debate in the Erfurt state parliament is not lacking in allegations. Democracy is being “abused and disregarded,” says the speaker from the Left Party, which is aligned with the AfD and the CDU. “A grab in the toilet” is what the CDU says back. The FDP warns everyone about “kindergarten”.
Even if it doesn’t give the impression this Friday: a reform of the Thuringian constitution is being discussed here. It’s about a bundle of projects. Voluntary work and sustainability should be strengthened and referendums and citizen applications should be made easier. The electronic promulgation of legal acts is also under discussion.
SPD is pushing for agreement
A special committee was formed four years ago. But around six months before the state elections on September 1st, there is no agreement between the minority coalition of the Left Party, the SPD and the Greens as well as the FDP and the CDU. So far, a letter from 21 associations that are pushing for the reform has not changed anything – including the core clientele of all parties, from trade unions to fire departments.
“People don’t understand why we don’t deliver,” says Dorothea Marx in an interview tagesschau.de. The parliamentary director of the SPD has sat in the state parliament since 2009. She ends her remarks with a laconic “That’s Thuringia.”
According to Marx, there is agreement with the CDU on many points, such as volunteer work. The Red-Red-Green coalition has also said goodbye to the desired lowering of the voting age to 16 and has accommodated the CDU by providing better security for municipal finances.
The CDU initially linked its approval to the latter. In 2021, a reform seemed within reach before the agreed new state parliament elections. But then the new election failed and many agreements fell apart.
Debate about the third round of voting
A CDU idea that had initially been put on the back burner now also became a condition: the new regulation of the third round of voting in the prime ministerial election. From the perspective of the CDU and some legal experts, the current regulation is unclear.
Accordingly, if the AfD becomes the largest parliamentary group from autumn, Björn Höcke could be elected Prime Minister if there is no majority for a common candidate in the rest of the state parliament. The tough camp dispute, to which Thuringian state politics has often succumbed, has this time a particularly serious reason. The fall height is large.
Georg Maier, SPD Interior Minister, also recently called for a change to the voting rules. However, Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow rejects this. There is no movement. The CDU and red-red-green disagree about how concrete previous agreements on reform points were – and about how experts in the committee assessed them.
“The current constitution says: You have to come out of cover,” says Dorothea Marx. In the worst case scenario, a proposal made by the CDU to change the election would lead to repeated new elections and thus instability. And in general there is “no reasonable reason” to link the other projects to it.
The Red-Red-Green now wants to break up “the blackmail of the CDU” (Marx) and put individual changes to the vote at the next state parliament session. The CDU would then have to position itself. There is a reason for the pressure: After the state elections, it will probably no longer be possible to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority without AfD votes.
AfD wants to block red-red-green
Stefan Möller, a member of the AfD, also sees it this way. His regional association, which is classified as right-wing extremist, has been polling at over 30 percent for months. Möller runs it together with Höcke.
If the AfD made up a third or more of the representatives, it would protect the constitution from the “ideological grip of red-red-green” and from “GDR-ization,” says Möller. The committee, of which Möller is a member, has recently been “vegetating” due to the mutual blockades.
From the AfD’s perspective, there is hardly any proposal worth supporting. Even the voluntary work regulation cannot be supported by the AfD in its current form, says Möller, as it is not certain that “only neutral institutions” will be supported. “Neutral” in this case would probably mean not getting involved against the AfD. However, the AfD could agree to the electronic version.
However, if there were actually an open vote and a constitutional amendment with AfD votes were passed, the following scandal, including mutual blame, would be foreseeable. Just Thuringia.
CDU sees disunity between red-red-green as the cause
For now, CDU parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt is at the center of the allegations. He insists on amending the constitution only once – or not at all. Voigt is statesmanlike: everyone involved should “become aware of their shared responsibility” and leave party-political petty matters behind, he says. This requires respect for the constitution.
The CDU has always been the proactive part over the last four years. By presenting a volunteer law in January, she also showed how important the issue was to her in one way or another. According to Voigt, the discussion about the third round of voting shows the real dilemma: “What happened under the red-red-green coalition happened: they didn’t agree with each other.”
Hanging part thanks Incompatibility decision
One reason for the Thuringian deadlock: the CDU and the Left depend on each other, but do not work together long-term. A possible coalition was rejected in 2019, also because the CDU has an incompatibility decision for “coalitions and similar forms of cooperation” with the Left.
Voigt is also committed to this. In his view, the Left is “programmatically empty in key policy areas” and overall “tired and tired.” There is no need for a discussion about the incompatibility decision, for example at the CDU federal party conference in May.
In surveys, however, both a CDU-SPD-FDP coalition that Voigt is aiming for and a new edition of red-red-green are far from a majority. The Left is therefore extending its hand to the CDU.
Hoff beats CDU “coalition” without Coalition agreement before
A suggestion as to what collaboration could look like from autumn comes from Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff. The head of the Thuringian State Chancellery is a close confidante of Ramelow. He says that people in Thuringia are fed up with minority coalitions – no matter who leads them. Politics should not take them “hostage to political instability” due to incompatibility decisions.
Hoff envisions a coalition without a coalition agreement. The Left and the CDU would only agree on a few key projects, such as digitalization, infrastructure expansion, recruiting skilled workers and shaping the energy transition. Such a fundamental agreement could create a binding alliance rather than a coalition agreement, he says.
Bodo Ramelow and Mario Voigt would have to decide together “in trust” about the exact construct – and thus also personnel issues. However, Voigt must first get the CDU parliamentary group under control, said Hoff.
Voigt: “Don’t want to be elected with AfD votes”
Hoff reminds us that, despite all the difficulties, the Red-Red-Green and CDU managed to pass several budgets and a constitutional Corona aid package together, which could also be “told as a positive democracy story”.
It is precisely on these agreements that Voigt bases his claim to the Prime Minister’s office. “I don’t want to be elected with the AfD’s votes,” he says, in case there aren’t enough for his desired coalition. Then the other parties and factions would have to “show where they stand”. He just doesn’t want to work with the left.
Meanwhile, all sides want to continue talks on constitutional reform for the time being.