SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert believes that controversial debates in the coalition are necessary in order to achieve his party’s goals. The SPD shouldn’t “just work stupidly what we wrote down in the coalition agreement, but also bring new impetus,” he said in the ARD “Morgenmagazin”.
You can’t get anything out of supposed harmony on controversial issues. “We have to fight for the right way. And sometimes there has to be a crunch when it’s for the right cause,” Kühnert made clear. Specifically, he named the rental price brake demanded by his party, which the co-governing FDP sees critically.
Kühnert: Land is at a crossroads
The general secretary rejected the fact that the SPD was not visible within the coalition: many measures had been implemented to relieve the financial burden on people. “But in times of inflation of six or seven percent last year, this is of course put into perspective even more,” said Kühnert. The country is currently at a crossroads with the question of “how our prosperity will be achieved in the future and how we will position ourselves internationally,” said Kühnert. This creates questions that no governing coalition can easily solve.
Satisfaction with the federal government has continued to decline over the past four weeks. This is the result of a survey by infratest dimap for the ARD “Deutschlandtrend”. Only 19 percent of those surveyed are very satisfied or satisfied with the work of the traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP. In addition, the SPD comes in third place in the Sunday question with only 16 percent behind the Union and AfD. In the 2021 federal election, the SPD was the strongest party, receiving 25.7 percent.
