The mask of mutual agreement appears to be slipping from political parties set to form a coalition government in Germany by the end of this month – with a defence minister saying he “never” backed a proposal made by the likely future Chancellor to send missiles to Ukraine. It’s a sign trouble could be brewing in the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, ahead of Friedrich Merz swearing in as the new leader of the country on May 6.
Mr Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is due to take the top job, being backed by its sister party CSU and the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). But cracks have begun to show between the CDU and the SPD faction, which is led by co-leaders Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken. In a recent TV interview, Mr Merz reiterated a pledge to send more long-range Taurus cruise missiles to support Ukraine in the war against Russia. But when asked about the comments, acting defence minister Boris Pistorius, a senior SPD figure, said: “I was never in favour of that.”
Mr Pistorius is widely expected to keep his role as defence minister, so if he maintained his position it could put him seemingly directly at odds with his future boss, Mr Merz.
Roughly 358,000 SPD members are still eligible to vote on the proposed coalition deal until April 29, and Politico reports the party’s youth wing, Jusos, representing around 12% of the entire membership, is firmly against stricter immigration controls trumpeted by Mr Merz and supported by conservative-leaning Christian Democratic Union.
Jusos leader Philipp Türmer called the immigration agreement between the coalition a “ticking time bomb”, and SPD party chair, Lars Klingbeil, said if the membership fails to vote to proceed with a coalition government, there will be “no second round” of voting.
He added: “If this fails, there will be new elections or a minority government.”
However, Mr Klingbeil added: “Germany must be a place of stability. For that, we need a stable democratic government, and we have presented a sensible coalition agreement for that.”
The CDU also must approve the accord at a party convention set for April 28, while its sister party’s leadership, CSU, already approved it last week.
If SDP members vote to accept the coalition next week, the German parliament will convene on May 6 to elect Merz as the country’s next leader. Parliament’s lower house, the Bundestag, said on Monday that Speaker Julia Klöckner is preparing to call the session early next month.
Merz will need a majority of all members of the house to be elected as post-World War 2 Germany’s 10th chancellor, succeeding Olaf Scholz. The proposed coalition of his centre-right Christian Democratic Union; its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union; and Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats has a relatively modest majority, with 328 of the 630 seats.
Since no party wants to work with the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, which finished second in Germany’s election in February, no other plausible combination of governing parties has a parliamentary majority.
The would-be coalition aims to spur economic growth, ramp up defence spending, take a tougher approach to migration and catch up on long-neglected modernisation. But there is some resistance in the Social Democrats’ ranks after the party finished third in February with its worst postwar result in a national parliamentary election.