Shortly before the end of the members’ vote of the Berlin SPD on the negotiated coalition agreement with the CDU, there was renewed protest from the ranks of the Left and Greens against such an alliance. “Within the framework of a coalition agreement, some things can still be bridged with non-binding rhetoric, but in practice the fundamental differences quickly become blockades,” write Berlin’s Senator for Social Affairs Katja Kipping (Left) and Finance Senator Daniel Wesener (Greens) in a guest article in the “Tagesspiegel” ( Online: Sunday). “Grand coalitions have not been solving major problems for a long time.”
The capital SPD had started the basic vote by letter on April 4th. The completed ballot papers must be returned to the SPD by Friday (April 21). The count is scheduled for April 23. The CDU, which clearly won the repeat elections in Berlin in February, wants to vote on the coalition agreement at a party conference on April 24. If both parties say yes, the signing of the government program is scheduled for April 26. The next day, the CDU state chairman Kai Wegner is to be elected governing mayor and successor to Franziska Giffey (SPD). He would be the first Christian Democrat to hold that post since 2001.
Kipping and Wesener’s guest article about a grand coalition says: “The result is, at best, a formula compromise, but the implementation has come to a standstill. In the dynamic and crisis-ridden times in which we live, that simply means going backwards.” The substantive agreements between the SPD, Greens and Left in Berlin are objectively greater “than can ever be the case with the CDU”.
The contribution should be aimed primarily at the SPD members who have not yet voted on the coalition agreement. The decision of the Berlin SPD leadership to strive for a coalition with the CDU is highly controversial within the party. For weeks there has been strong criticism from some district associations and from the Jusos – especially since a continuation of the previous coalition of SPD, Greens and Left would have been possible.
Guest article in the daily mirror
