Berlin (dpa) – Almost four weeks after the repeat election in Berlin, the CDU and SPD are expected to start their coalition negotiations on Thursday. Then a meeting of the so-called umbrella group is planned, said a CDU spokesman on Sunday of the German Press Agency. A spokesman for the SPD confirmed the date. However, the preparations for the talks about a black-red government are accompanied by a lot of criticism – including from the SPD.
Giffey’s own district association against black and red
Berlin’s SPD leader Franziska Giffey, previously the governing mayor, is campaigning for a coalition with the CDU, but her own district association in Neukölln is against it. The SPD in Neukölln has decided on an application by the Jusos and rejects a black-red coalition, said the deputy leader of the SPD in the district parliament, Marco Preuss, on Saturday on Twitter. The Berlin Jusos have announced a campaign against black and red.
The Berlin SPD wants its members to vote on the coalition agreement. The state executive had spoken out in favor of coalition negotiations with the CDU on the formation of a new state government with a two-thirds majority.
CDU country chief Kai Wegner announced a “very tight time frame” for the negotiations. “We said we want to be finished in four weeks,” he said last Thursday.
The CDU won the repeat election to the House of Representatives in Berlin in mid-February with 28.2 percent. SPD and Greens both got 18.4 percent – with a wafer-thin lead for the Social Democrats. So far, a coalition of SPD, Greens and Left has governed in Berlin.
