SPD, Greens and FDP move closer to forming next German government

The SPD’s Olaf Scholz has taken a step closer towards becoming Germany’s next chancellor, after his party announced it had reached a preliminary deal with the Greens and the FDP to form a new government. 

SPD, Greens and FDP reach preliminary deal

On Friday, the three parties announced that they had wrapped up their exploratory coalition talks and had agreed to proceed further. Final approval from senior party officials came on Friday for the SPD, and on Sunday for the Greens. The FDP leadership is set to approve the step on Monday. 

The party leaders have pencilled out a preliminary agreement on how they could work together as part of a new government - dubbed the “traffic light coalition” after the parties’ colours of red, green and yellow. 

“We have agreed on a text from the exploratory talks,” said Scholz on Friday. “Overall, we can sense here that a new beginning is possible, brought about by the three parties that have come together here.”

In their exploratory paper, which was made available on Friday, the three parties laid down some cornerstone pledges that they had all agreed on, including:

• Honouring Germany’s no-new-debt rule
• Not increasing taxes
• Raising the minimum wage to 12 euros per hour
• Lowering the voting age to 16
• Reducing the cost of electricity
• Bringing forward the coal phase-out to 2030
• Not imposing a speed limit on the German autobahn
• Banning new combustion engines from 2035
• Not increasing the retirement age

Armin Laschet shoulders blame for CDU’s poor performance

In the German federal election at the end of last month, Scholz’s SPD party won the largest share of the vote, and has since been holding preliminary talks with the climate-friendly Greens and pro-business FDP party. After finishing in third and fourth place, respectively, the two parties have emerged as powerful kingmakers in forming the next government. 

Angela Merkel’s CDU party put in its worst-ever election performance to slide to second place with just shy of a quarter of the vote. On Saturday, CDU leader and chancellor hopeful Armin Laschet said that he took full responsibility for his party’s poor performance and that he would be stepping down from his role as state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia. 

He is also expected to step down as party chairperson, but will remain in position for the time being until a new candidate is selected. In view of Friday’s preliminary deal between the SPD, Greens and FDP, Laschet said the conservatives should now prepare to enter the opposition in the Bundestag, a position they have not sat in since 2005.