Saturday 17th July 2021
Coalition in Saxony-Anhalt
SPD comes to the negotiating table
The “Germany coalition” in Saxony-Anhalt is within reach. As a third party, the SPD agrees to coalition negotiations with the CDU and FDP. Unlike conservatives and liberals, the social democrats have to struggle for hours to say yes.
The CDU, SPD and FDP in Saxony-Anhalt can negotiate the formation of the new state government from next week. With the SPD, the last of the three parties agreed to the negotiations on Friday evening. At an extraordinary state party conference in Leuna, the majority of the delegates voted in favor of a corresponding proposal from the state executive.
The decision was preceded by hours of debate on the pros and cons of a possible coalition with conservatives and liberals. The CDU and FDP had already decided to participate in the state boards on Thursday. In contrast to the CDU and FDP, which both won in the state elections on June 6, the SPD had many reservations about participating in government again after the worst result in its history of 8.4 percent in Saxony-Anhalt. Above all, several Social Democrats had spoken out against cooperation with the FDP in the past few days and warned that the SPD would have to support a neoliberal economic policy in a black-red-yellow coalition.
Group leader Katja Pähle, Minister of Health Petra Grimm-Benne, Minister of Economic Affairs Armin Willingmann and the party leaders Juliane Kleemann and Andreas Schmidt had represented the SPD in the explorations – they promoted the negotiations.
With the approval of the SPD, the talks can start next week. Should the three parties agree on a coalition agreement, the CDU and SPD would have to have their members confirmed. On September 16, the state parliament is to re-elect Reiner Haseloff as prime minister. The last time there was a coalition of CDU, SPD and FDP in Germany was in 1959.
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