Jusos reject black and red
Berlin SPD starts talks with CDU on Thursday
3/5/2023 4:04 p.m
There is some dissatisfaction among Berlin’s Social Democrats because the Governing Mayor wants to form a coalition with the Union. Giffey can still rely on the majority on the state board. CDU country chief Wegner announces a rapid pace for the negotiations.
Almost four weeks after the repeat elections 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, spokesmen for the two parties said.
However, the preparations for the talks about a black-red government are accompanied by criticism – including from the SPD. 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. With a two-thirds majority, the state executive spoke out in favor of coalition negotiations with the CDU on the formation of a new state government.
Linke: “We can now be angry too”
The left was deeply upset at a party conference on Friday evening and announced that it would no longer negotiate with Giffey – even if black and red didn’t work out. “We can now be angry too,” said Linke state chairwoman Katina Schubert. That Giffey wanted to hold coalition talks with the CDU state chairman Kai Wegner – “to be honest, that’s shameful”.
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.