Now it’s time to get down to business: negotiations on a new government really start this week. One thing is clear: very different partners are sitting at the same table here.
The SPD, Greens and FDP want to start coalition negotiations on Thursday afternoon to form a joint government. As the dpa learned and previously reported by the Funke media group, a total of 22 working groups are planned.
In them, specialist politicians should negotiate the details of the coalition agreement on various topics and policy areas. The aim is to form a government before Christmas.
After the SPD and the Greens, the FDP also voted on Monday to start intensive talks on the formation of the first traffic light government at the federal level. The three parties had previously held exploratory talks in order to sound out commonalities and differences without obligation.
Content differences
In terms of content, there are still some differences between the potential partners. SPD leader Norbert Walter-Borjans admitted that the projects and plans were not yet fully financed. “The finances have to be deposited, of course,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group. In the case of investments in the future, partial financing with loans is justified, “the debt brake definitely contains leeway for this”. In addition, there would be the possibilities of state institutions such as development banks.
Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter brought financing outside the core budget into play at RTL and ntv. “We can well imagine that the public sector is investing,” he said, naming the state bank KfW, Deutsche Bahn and Autobahn GmbH.
The SPD economic wing also mentioned this possibility. “I think public companies like Deutsche Bahn can be a way to provide money, but not to tear the debt brake,” said the vice-president of the SPD economic forum, Matthias Machnig, the “Handelsblatt”. Such companies are not included in the calculation of the debt brake. At the same time, Machnig brought the fund to stabilize the economy set up during the corona crisis into play. “Such a fund could provide companies with the capital they need to promote pioneering innovations,” he said.
Exploratory paper
In the result paper after the exploratory phase, the parties’ negotiators had ruled out new taxes and stressed that taxes such as income, corporate and value-added tax should not be increased. In addition, the debt brake should be adhered to, which allows the state only a small amount of new loans. There are also plans for a higher statutory minimum wage of 12 euros per hour, an accelerated expansion of renewable energies and, ideally, a coal phase-out by 2030.
Struggle for positions
The Green politician Claudia Roth expects hard content-related disputes. “Of course, the next few weeks in the struggle for a future-oriented policy will be intense, exhausting and difficult,” she said of the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. The 66-year-old belongs to the core negotiating team of her party and also wants to reapply for the Bundestag presidium, to which she was last a member as vice-president.
Roth emphasized that so far the potential government partners had neither talked about filling ministries nor about the design of departments. “First of all, we are now negotiating the content, the division of responsibilities will follow at the end,” she said. Demands by FDP politicians Marco Buschmann and Wolfgang Kubicki to award the finance ministry to FDP leader Christian Lindner were rejected as inappropriate. “It’s a dissonance that disturbs the sound, which has been really good so far,” said Roth. “It doesn’t really need such tones and they don’t make it any easier.”
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