Say what? German Chancellor Angela Merkel talks to Social Democrats Party (SPD) leader Martin Schulz in Parliament yesterday
Germany’s Social Democrat Party is under mounting pressure to reconsider joining their former coalition partner Chancellor Angela Merkel in government, to prevent a national crisis.
Talks on a potential coalition between Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and two other smaller parties collapsed on Sunday, putting Europe’s biggest economy at risk of sinking into months of paralysis.
SPD leader Martin Schulz has repeatedly said he would not return as the junior coalition partner to Merkel, but has now been asked to revise his position.
Voices within and outside the SPD have grown louder in questioning Schulz’s decision and his push for early elections.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is himself a senior Social Democrat, has said that this ‘is the moment when all participants need to reconsider their attitude’.
Steinmeier will meet with Schulz on Thursday.
The president has already held talks with the leaders of parties in the failed coalition talks – the pro-business FDP – which halted the negotiations – and the Greens.
And he met with the leader of Merkel’s Bavarian allies the CSU on Wednesday.
As the crisis shows no signs of abating, the Sueddeutsche daily reported that ‘in the SPD, unease is growing over its clear refusal of a grand coalition’.
‘One must speak with the president openly, without already insisting on your own point of view,’ Johannes Kahrs, who leads the right-leaning wing of the SPD, told Bild daily.
EU Budget Commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, also urged the SPD to reexamine its stance.
‘With a view on Germany’s ability to take action in Europe, the SPD should once again consider if it should not join a government,’ Oettinger, a CSU politician, told Spiegel weekly.
‘Resistance is growing’ against Schulz, Bild reported, adding that the ‘most prominent secret advocate for a new grand coalition is deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel’.
Schulz has declared that he was ready for a snap poll, but latest surveys show that an early election would likely deliver similar results to September’s – and the risk of potentially getting a worse score than the record low 20.5 percent is something that SPD members fear.
Worries: Coalition talks between Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and two other smaller parties collapsed on Sunday, putting Germany at risk of political crisis
‘While a majority of rank and file members is fundamentally opposed to another stint in government, parts of the party’s establishment feel that throwing a life-line to Merkel could well be preferable to unpredictable alternatives,’ said Michael Broening, political analyst at the SPD-linked Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
‘At the very least it would enable the Social Democrats to push for a whole list of social democratic demands and basically dictate the terms of what is widely expected to be Merkel’s last government,’ he added.
With former finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble out of the way, the SPD could even make a play for the powerful ministry at a time when the public treasury is bulging with 45 billion euros, noted German media.
Seemingly backpedalling from Schulz’s snap polls call, SPD parliamentary group chief Andrea Nahles said on Monday she would not rule out backing a Merkel-led minority government.
The party’s rank and file are also wondering if former European Parliament chief Schulz is the best man to lead them into any new election campaign, according to media reports two weeks before the SPD’s annual congress.
‘Too many mistakes during the election, missteps with new appointments and – worst of all – a misjudgement of the public’s current mood,’ Bild said.