Coalition negotiations: Second half: Union and SPD negotiate fat “chunks”

Now it is about the very big compromises: The coalition talks of the CDU, CSU and SPD has been on the train since today. Your task for the next few days: Clarify the big issues and determine what wishes can be financed at all. The result should be a coalition agreement and thus the agenda of a black and red federal government.

“We have to draw a common picture of how we imagine the Federal Republic of Germany in the next ten years,” the next Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) announced before the first meeting at the SPD headquarters.

Representatives of all three parties were optimistic of coming to a result. SPD boss Lars Klingbeil emphasized: “We know about the size of the task we have. We know that it is about forming a stable government in our country and we want it to work.”

There is a lot at stake in government formation-because alternatives to a black and red coalition does not exist if you exclude cooperation with the AfD. “We have to be successful,” emphasized CSU boss Markus Söder.

But there are “still a few chunks” that are now trying to clear together, said CDU boss Merz. According to the negotiators, the negotiators are more than just about transferring the proposals of the specialist working groups into a common paper and solving issues.

“The series of many good demands does not yet make a coalition agreement,” said Klingbeil. The top negotiators would also have to check whether all of this is “big enough” in the face of the challenges that Germany faces.

The focus of the first two days of conversation on Friday and Saturday should be the finances. The Union and the SPD are still far apart here: For example, the question of whether top earners should pay higher taxes in the future, how inheritances will be taxed and from when the targeted corporate tax reform should take effect.

“Of course, the view of the finances goes,” emphasized Klingbeil. “It is completely clear to us, we can only present a coalition agreement that is shaped by solid finances, of projects that we consider important that are financed.” They really wanted to prevent the mistake of the traffic light coalition that wrote down good things, but which were not financed.

“We will have to save comprehensively,” announced Merz. CSU state group leader Alexander Dobrindt said on Thursday on the ZDF program of Maybrit Illner that it was not surprising that the working group for finance, taxes and household could not have agreed. “It was also clear to everyone that this could only be negotiated in a top round.” The SPD is for an increase in certain taxes that Union wants to lower it, a compromise is “relatively difficult to find”.

Second dispute: migration

The decisions in the field of finance form the basis for what you can afford in other areas. But that is not the only topic in which compromises can still be found that get painful for individual negotiators. “In essential questions of German politics, we need a new attempt,” warned Merz. In addition to financial planning, he called the containment of irregular migration.

The rejection of asylum seekers at the borders is a main contestation point for which only a formula compromise has been found in the previous conversations. After that, the rejection should be possible “in coordination with our European neighbors”. Opinions differ whether this means that neighboring states should only be informed or have to agree on this procedure.

The working group has also left open whether the next federal government will meet the Union’s demand to enable asylum procedures outside the EU. Union negotiators also want to tighten citizenship law differently than the SPD. It is to be checked whether “terrorist supporters, anti-Semites and extremists who call up to abolish the freedom-democratic basic order” can be withdrawn from German citizenship if they have further nationality.

Negotiates show optimism

In view of the many open points, Merz now has to prove new negotiating skills. Originally, he had targeted forming a government by Easter at the latest. In the meantime, however, the CDU leader has moved away from the strict time and emphasized that quality is about to speed in the coalition agreement.

SPD boss Saskia Esken also braked the expectations of many specialist politicians in their own ranks. The working groups had written down a “collection of very, very many ideas and very, very many wishes”. “But you have to say very clearly: our means are limited. By the way, the legislature is also limited. We do not write a coalition agreement for the next 20 years,” she emphasized.

But all the protagonists strive for demonstrative optimism: “At a few points we still have different views, but we will already do it together and we will end up with a good result,” I am sure, “said Söder.