Bavaria’s Prime Minister is drumming up support for a new alliance between the Union and the SPD. Söder calls on Chancellor Scholz to cut off the Greens and the FDP.
Munich – CSU chairman Markus Söder increased the pressure on the traffic light government in Berlin on Saturday (November 18th) and positioned his party for renewed government participation at the federal level. The trigger for this was the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on Wednesday.
In the ruling, the top judges declared the traffic light coalition’s supplementary budget to be unconstitutional. This means that the government is short of almost 60 billion euros for its climate policy goals. Critical voices even suspected that the alliance could collapse as a result of the decision.
Söder sees Scholz under pressure after the Karlsruhe ruling – “traffic lights are in shambles”
One of these critical voices comes from Bavaria’s Prime Minister. “The traffic light is now in a big pile of shards. A government that is so divided and regularly fails before the Constitutional Court cannot give the Germans the leadership and security they need in the crisis,” said Söder in an interview with Editorial network Germany (RND). The CSU leader’s analysis: “The Chancellor should actually dismiss his coalition partners now.”
After the decision from Karlsruhe, Chancellor Olaf Scholz presented himself to the Bundestag for a government survey on Wednesday and expressed reservations about the budget. During the survey, the Chancellor announced that he would “closely observe” the new budget guidelines.
It is conceivable that the ruling will result in “a very profound change in budgetary practice,” Scholz continued. The ruling will have “immediate consequences” for the Climate and Transformation Fund. There needs to be a new discussion about its economic plan.
Söder advocates black-red alliances with the Greens as a “discontinued model”
Prime Minister Söder spoke out in favor of a new edition of a so-called grand coalition – an alliance between the Union and the SPD. As in the election campaign for the state elections in Bavaria, the CSU leader mainly dealt against the Greens. “Black-green is currently a discontinued model. Black-red is more attractive because, especially in times of crisis, the focus is more on common sense and not on ideological ideas like with the Greens,” said Söder RND further. “The problems are on the table, we could reach an agreement with the SPD more quickly than with others.”
There has also been a trend away from black-green at the state level in the recent past. Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) broke up the government alliance with the Greens after nine years and brought the Hesse SPD into the government boat. Berlin’s governing mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) also decided in favor of a coalition with the Social Democrats after his election victory in February 2023.
“It’s about the continued existence of the traffic lights” – doubts about the future of the coalition
It remains to be seen whether the Union will be able to assume government responsibility at the federal level again in the future. The scenario would be possible either through new elections, in which the CDU/CSU and SPD would win the majority of votes, or through dismantling the traffic lights and new coalition negotiations between the Union and the SPD.
Bavaria’s FDP leader Martin Hagen confirmed this in an interview with the Munich Mercury (Saturday edition) that the handling of the Constitutional Court ruling is about the future of the traffic light coalition. “So everything that costs money will have to be put to the test in the future – this applies to climate policy projects, but also to an out-of-control welfare state. It remains to be seen whether the Greens and the SPD are ready for this. Ultimately, the continued existence of the traffic light depends on it.”
Söder advocates a grand coalition – the base of the FDP and the Greens is struggling with the traffic lights
There have been rumblings among the base of the FDP and the Greens for several weeks. The differences in content seem to be too great in some places. The Free Democrats collected signatures to persuade the party to leave the coalition. Both On the other hand, 600 members of the Green Party called for a clearer commitment to the party’s principles in an open letter.
If the traffic light coalition breaks up, the Union might even have a good chance of winning the Chancellery in new elections. In a Forsa survey on November 13th, the CDU and CSU received 30 percent of the vote. (fd)
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