German opposition parties slam exploratory coalition talks result
The German opposition parties have slammed the results of the exploratory talks between the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democrats (SPD) on forming a government.
Instead of solving structural problems, the parties want to do as they did in previous centre-left governments and pour money into everything, Green party leader Franziska Brantner said in Berlin on Saturday. "That is poison for our country."
Co-party leader Felix Banaszak emphasized: "We are further from an agreement today than we have been in the last few days."
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) are likely to need the votes of the Greens to pass the security package they agreed on a few days ago.
They had agreed to relax the debt brake for higher defence spending and to create a debt-financed special fund of €500 billion ($528 billion) for infrastructure.
The changes, which require a two-thirds majority, are to be decided by the existing Bundestag. The new Bundestag, elected on February 23, has different majorities and would make it more difficult to pass.
Specifically, the Greens are accusing the CDU and SPD of wanting to finance their election promises with these new funds instead of using the money for actual improvements.
"We see that the €500 billion are obviously not supposed to be used for additional infrastructure projects, but for election promises, pensions for mothers and commuter allowances," said Brantner.
It was "depressing" that climate protection does not play a role, Banaszak added.
AfD charges that Merz is breaking promises
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) charged that CDU leader Merz, the country's likely next chancellor, has already broken his electoral promises and caved to demands from the Social Democrats, given the exploratory coalition talks' results.
In return for "breaking his election promises and surrendering to the SPD's debt madness, Friedrich Merz has only received vague promises and formulaic compromises in migration policy, full of reservations and backdoors," AfD parliamentary group leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said on Saturday.
The outlined social and economic policy plans bear "the signature of the SPD, the loser of the election," Weidel and Chrupalla asserted.
"Outdated socialist recipes like 'industrial electricity pricing' and e-car subsidies create neither prosperity nor economic growth; they accelerate the decline of the planned economy and deindustrialization," they added.
They charged that the CDU betrayed its voters, opened the floodgates to debt and damaged the constitution "for this miserable result."
"This exploratory paper is an agreement to the detriment of Germany," the AfD leaders added.
The Left: CDU&SPD working against the majority
Germany's far-left party, The Left, sees the exploratory agreements between the CDU and SPD on the way to coalition talks as working against the interests of most citizens.
"At best, there is a 'business as usual' option. The majority of society can only stand by and watch as politics is made over their heads and against their interests," parliamentary group leaders Heidi Reichinnek and Sören Pellmann charged on Saturday.
"Key issues such as housing, health, strengthening families, equal living conditions in East and West or affordable food are discussed in passing or not even mentioned. Concrete measures or major projects in these areas are sought almost in vain."
The fact that at the same time it was announced that there is a great need for consolidation suggests that this will affect the weakest in society, they added.
"This extremely problematic prioritization is supplemented by a blank cheque for rearmament and a special fund whose contents nobody knows – and on top of that, its legitimation is highly questionable from a democratic point of view," the heads of the left-wing faction criticized.
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