Germany's SPD campaigns for coalition agreement amid youth unrest
Leaders of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) are set to meet for a conference on Monday, campaigning for party members to approve a high-stakes coalition agreement to form the next government in Berlin.
SPD co-leaders Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken are among those expected to attend the meeting in the northern city of Hanover.
The pair led the centre-left party's negotiations with conservative leader Friedrich Merz's CDU/CSU bloc, which concluded with the publication of a 144-page coalition deal on Wednesday setting out a programme for the next four years.
The Bavaria-only Christian Social Union (CSU) has already approved the agreement, while Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU) are expected to do so in a small party conference on April 28.
In contrast, the SPD has decided to let its members decide in a two-week online ballot that opens at midnight (2200 GMT).
Some 358,000 members are eligible to vote, with the result expected to be announced on April 30.
The party's rank and file previously voted by wide margins to approve coalition agreements with the CDU/CSU in 2013 and 2017.
But in a warning sign to Klingbeil and Esken, the SPD's youth branch - known as the Young Socialists or Jusos - on Monday said it would advise its members to reject the deal.
"It's not enough for us," Jusos leader Philipp Türmer told broadcaster RTL/ntv.
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Israel Gets the War It Wanted
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an hour ago
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Healey meets with recently detained Milford teen, gives him beaded rosary blessed by Pope Francis
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