Berlin The Union is preparing for its exploratory talks. The CDU explorers met on this Saturday afternoon. Tomorrow after the celebrations for German unity, the CDU and CSU will vote. In the evening, the party leaders Armin Laschet and Markus Söder will talk to the FDP. The Greens should continue on Tuesday. The goal: prevent a traffic light coalition and forge a Jamaica alliance.
It is a strategically important issue for the Union that goes well beyond personal career plans. Of course, Laschet has to become Chancellor in order to play a role in the Union at all. And even Söder could possibly make claims at the end of coalition negotiations and displace his permanent rival, which he has been working towards for months.
In any case, the Germans are looking forward to a traffic light coalition: According to a survey by the opinion research institute Infratest dimap, 51 percent of those questioned in the “ARD Germany trend” are most likely to see an alliance of the SPD, FDP and the Greens in favor of a new beginning, only 18 percent think so a so-called Jamaica coalition led by the Union. For 24 percent, neither of the two coalition options stands for a new beginning.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Federal Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer issued the first public warning. The Union must go “with broad support for the chairmen of the CDU and CSU” in the exploratory talks for a Jamaica alliance. Otherwise, there was a threat of “negative answers” – already in the upcoming state elections.
Warnings about the consequences of a traffic light
“It is good if there is an alternative to a red light with a Jamaica coalition whose substantive ideas deserve the name future coalition,” she said. Even CSU General Secretary Markus Blume supported this on Friday after the party presidium had discussed the exploratory talks: “Jamaica has a chance, Jamaica is an opportunity. Jamaica also has charm. “
Top politicians from other federal states are also warning of a traffic light coalition. “It is incredibly difficult to get through when the FDP is also an opposition within such a coalition and receives much more attention for business-friendly positions,” it said. There is corresponding experience at the municipal level.
The Greens and the FDP have already held initial talks.
(Photo: dpa)
At the state level, a traffic light coalition currently only exists in Rhineland-Palatinate. And yet there is concern in the Union: Should there be an alliance between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, then this could become a “progressive alliance”, as the Greens leader Annalena Baerbock has already described, as a trend.
The winner of the Berlin House of Representatives election, Franziska Giffey, would rather have a traffic light than another red-red-green alliance. And Manuela Schwesig could also switch to this alliance variant after her clear victory in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but the two small parties have only just recently entered the state parliament.
The SPD, FDP and the Greens are still only ruling in one federal state – still
If so, there would be three signals in the direction of the upcoming state elections in the coming year: in Saarland (where Tobias Hans leads a grand coalition), in Schleswig-Holstein (where Daniel Günther rules Jamaica), in North Rhine-Westphalia (Armin Laschet rules with the FDP) and in Lower Saxony, where the CDU is a junior partner in a grand coalition with Bernd Althusmann, this option could suddenly open up.
Suddenly 30 of the 69 votes in the Federal Council would be given to traffic light governments. Only five more votes and the project would have a majority in the regional chamber. How relevant the question is can be seen when looking at the present and the past: If you want to achieve a majority, you have to talk to those parties that do not govern in the federal government.
Whether it is financially effective measures such as tax reform, property or inheritance tax, the rules of the game in climate policy, or the energy and transport transition: the countries and their governments are always on board.
Black, red, green, yellow, violet and orange: the color spectrum in the Länderkammer is now large. Sometimes the Union and SPD rule as in Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, then Union, FDP and Greens as Jamaica alliances as in Schleswig-Holstein or CDU, Greens and SPD (Saxony), SPD, Left and Greens (Bremen) or below Leadership of the Left (Thuringia), then again the Union and FDP (North Rhine-Westphalia) or even Greens and CDU (Baden-Württemberg) or CSU and Free Voters (Bavaria).
69 votes are distributed across 16 federal states, depending on the number of inhabitants, a majority of 35 votes currently none of the possible coalitions unites – neither a traffic light coalition of the SPD, FDP and the Greens, a Jamaica alliance or a grand coalition.
Federal governments have not had a majority in the Bundesrat since 2010
The last time there was a majority in a government camp in the Federal Council was in 2010: black and yellow. Since then, however, the chamber of states has become more and more colorful. And before that, the two big popular parties dominated.
In 1998, for example, even the SPD used its blocking minority to block the last bourgeois Kohl government and thus bring about the change. The Federal Council was seen as an important instrument of power politics in the struggle for the Chancellery. There were the A-countries, i.e. the SPD-led countries – and there was the B-side, these were the countries led by the Union. The world was clear and the deal was successful.
But those times are over. No wonder that Chancellor Angela Merkel had always asked the prime ministers to come to the table during the coalition negotiations with the SPD in 2013, as in 2017, in order to discuss the plans at an early stage before they are in the coalition agreement: it should not lead to a crippling confrontation later come. In fact, the mediation committee has only met rarely since then.
Could this change again? In 2023 there will be elections in Bremen, where a red-red-green alliance is already in power. Incidentally, although the SPD suffered a historically bad defeat and fell behind the CDU. The position of SPD leader Andreas Bovenschulte was therefore just as hopeless as that of Union election loser Armin Laschet in the federal government.
There are also elections in Hesse. CDU Vice Volker Bouffier still rules there with the Greens. However, the SPD has risen sharply in the Bundestag election. In purely mathematical terms, the majority could therefore be perfect by the end of 2023. “We do not want there to be traffic lights everywhere,” it says in the Union.
The prospect of this trend welds together at least within the CDU these days. The Union wanted to “forge a government alliance that reflects the entire spectrum of society,” General Secretary Paul Ziemiak announced on Thursday after the Union had issued invitations for talks to the FDP and the Greens. The party headquarters had previously called in a switching conference convened at short notice to discuss the plan.
“There is a large majority in favor of us having talks,” said Ziemiak. “We take these talks very seriously because we want to build bridges.” Ziemiak spoke of a “coalition for sustainability” that the Union wanted to offer. Sustainability related to climate protection, financing of the state, a modern and digitized state. It is “a great claim” that the Union wants to meet.
Because the role of the Union in the opposition would also be difficult: On the one hand, the FDP would be perceived by the public as a conscience of the social market economy and thus the CDU and CSU would overshadow their core competencies.
On the other hand, the Union would have to stand out from the AfD. “We would have to bark louder than the AfD, which would inevitably mean a swivel to the right and further polarization,” says the Union leadership. “And at some point the question would then be asked: Why don’t we agree with those who also say sensible things.”
More: In the end, the Union could rule – and the party leader still lose everything