Berlin The new era began for the CDU around 13 minutes later than planned. “The party chairmen of the CDU and CSU, Armin Laschet and Markus Söder, have made an offer to both the FDP and the Greens for discussion,” said General Secretary Paul Ziemiak shortly after 3 p.m. in Berlin. The offer was accepted. The Union wants to forge a “government alliance that represents the entire social breadth”.
On Sunday at 6.30 p.m. the Union and FDP will meet for initial talks, and then on Tuesday morning with the Greens. Previously, the party presidium had called together in a switching conference called at short notice to discuss the plan for what party leader Laschet has been promoting since the election defeat: talks with the FDP and the Greens to sound out a possible Jamaica alliance. “Election defeat and second place behind the SPD or not. There is a large majority in favor of us having talks, ”said Ziemiak.
With the Union, the schedule for the upcoming explorations in the coming days is now complete. At the weekend, the SPD, Union, Greens and FDP want to explore possible alliances in numerous rounds.
Concern about indiscretions, the issue is largely confidential – nothing should leak out like it did in 2017, when the Jamaica explorations failed after around a month. The parties are facing an important weekend, the first to clarify the question of who will rule the country for the next four years.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Friday
On Friday, the Greens and the FDP will meet for further talks – in a larger group than on Tuesday. The meeting, recorded with a selfie on Instagram, was attended by the Greens bosses Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck as well as FDP boss Christian Lindner and his general secretary Volker Wissing.
For an alliance with the Union, however, the FDP would have to convince the Greens, who tend more towards a traffic light coalition.
(Photo: dpa)
On Friday, in turn, the two parties will meet with a ten-person negotiating team. It is not yet known exactly where and when the meeting will take place. However, there should be no night meetings like during the Jamaica negotiations in 2017.
Instead, “first substantive questions should be deepened,” it says from the FDP. On issues such as an immigration law, the abolition of the advertising ban for abortions and a cannabis control law, one would come together quickly, said the Green party vice Jamila Schäfer the Handelsblatt. However, there are also difficult points when it comes to climate protection.
Saturday
The Greens want to set the course for the upcoming coalition negotiations on Saturday. The party holds a state council, the so-called small party congress. One of the things on the program is the vote on a key proposal from the Greens leadership, which, in addition to the names for the exploratory team, also provides a rough substantive direction for a possible coalition.
“From the election result we derive a clear mandate to take responsibility for shaping the country and to form a progressive government,” the motion says. “We want to use our strength and our competence to organize the necessary departure for this country. We cannot allow it to continue like this. The next federal government must be a climate government. “
The Greens also want to set up an expanded exploratory team to prepare and accompany the talks. This group should include 14 politicians, including the former party leader Cem Özdemir and the former environment minister and parliamentary group leader Jürgen Trittin.
Sunday
On Sunday, the smaller parties will meet for the first time for talks with the Union and the SPD. The team around Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz and the SPD bosses Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans consults with the FDP in the afternoon.
In the evening the Social Democrats meet with the Greens. Talks between the Liberals and the Union are planned for 6.30 p.m. “Trust” should be built up, but details or even compromises in terms of content are not yet on the agenda, according to FDP circles.
For the Liberals, a Jamaica coalition remains the most attractive option. With regard to forming a government with the SPD, party leader Lindner had repeatedly emphasized that he did not know what Scholz could offer the FDP that could also promise party chairmen Esken and Walter-Borjans – both party leaders had to sign a coalition agreement.
For an alliance with the Union, however, the FDP would have to convince the Greens, who tend more towards a traffic light coalition. The Green parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt spoke out clearly in favor of the traffic light: “I don’t see at the moment that the Union could be considered capable of exploring, let alone capable of governing,” she told the Funke media group.
The exploratory teams
Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz,
Party leaders Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans,
Group leader Rolf Mützenich,
the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate Malu Dreyer,
Secretary General Lars Klingbeil
Party leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck,
Group leaders in the Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Anton Hofreiter,
Group manager Britta Haßelmann,
Party managing director Michael Kellner,
Winfried Kretschmann (Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg),
Claudia Roth (previous Vice President of the Bundestag),
Sven Giegold (Member of the European Parliament),
Ricarda Lang (deputy party leader
Party leader Markus Söder,
CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt,
Secretary General Markus Blume,
Dorothee Bär (CSU Vice),
Stefan Müller (parliamentary director of the regional group)
Party leader Armin Laschet,
Secretary General Paul Ziemiak,
Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus,
Julia Klöckner, Silvia Breher, Volker Bouffier, Jens Spahn, Thomas Strobl (vice-party leaders)
Daniel Günther and Reiner Haseloff (Prime Ministers)
At first there was confusion about the meeting between the Union and the FDP. On Wednesday, the party leaders Armin Laschet and Markus Söder invited the FDP and Greens for talks. “Almost at the same time,” it said in the party, the Liberals had invited to a conversation for Saturday.
They then rumored that the Union had not yet given a commitment, which in turn raised the question of whether the talks might be in question before they were even agreed. But then it was announced on Thursday that Laschet, Söder and FDP leader Christian Lindner had agreed to meet on Sunday evening the evening before.
Above all, the CSU had mentioned scheduling problems. On Friday evening, for example, the Union will celebrate Edmund Stoiber’s 80th birthday with a ceremony at which Laschet will be the laudator and Söder will also be present. For Saturday, Söder then called several CSU committee meetings in the district associations.
Because even the CSU boss is anything but unchallenged despite all his sovereign appearances in view of the historically poor result in Bavaria. The CSU is visibly losing its communal anchoring in the country and especially in the big cities. The Free Voters took over the function of the caretaker party, it was said. That is why Söder wanted to forge a government alliance in the federal government.
Laschet himself also has to take care of his national association at the weekend. He wants to quickly submit a proposal for his successor as prime minister. As it was said on Thursday, however, he will probably not explain himself at the weekend because of the probing, but only in the next week.
Next week
According to the Union, there will be talks with the Greens on Tuesday. The party continues to hope for a Jamaica alliance. On Thursday, for example, CDU Vice President Jens Spahn promoted it. “I am firmly convinced that a bourgeois, ecological, liberal government would be better for our country than a traffic light, also when it comes to which issues it can bring together,” he said. The explorations should be brought to an end by mid-October.
Laschet is considered the only one in the Union who would be able to forge the alliance successfully and linked to a vision. On the one hand, it is pointed out that he is an “explainer” and someone who “brings people together”.
Armin Laschet is the only one in the Union who would be able to forge the Jamaica Alliance successfully and with a vision.
(Photo: dpa)
It was precisely those skills that included not boldly demanding things in short sentences and making a name for yourself – which was a disadvantage in the election campaign – but also leaving room for the other parties. This also benefits the FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia, with which the CDU has governed stably since 2017 with a majority of only one vote.
In the state there is hope that this alliance can be continued with a Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst after the state elections in 2023. The CDU won 26 percent in the federal election at state level, which is significantly more than the almost 18 percent nationwide of the CDU alone. It was possible in the state elections “to create the 30 percent loosely and thus to provide the government again,” it said.
With a view to the weekend, the decisive factor is how closed the party appears. It was a “balancing act”, said party vice spahn, on the one hand to negotiate, on the other hand to deal with the poor election result.
More: Scholz or Esken – who determines the course of the SPD