Germany: SPD at odds over coalition plan

FRANKFURTAMMAIN: Leading members of Germany’s Social Democrats voiced scepticism on Sunday over a preliminary coalition agreement reached with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, days after the hard-fought deal was hailed as a breakthrough.

Berlin’s SPD mayor Michael Mueller said he was “very critical” about entering into another government with Merkel’s CDU/ CSU bloc after all three parties slumped to their worst results in decades in September’s election.

“The same coalition with the same policies is not the right answer,” Mueller told the Tagesspiegel daily, calling for “further talks” to win more concessions on key SPD demands.

Party leaders on Friday had announced that after tortuous negotiations, they had signed off on a policy blueprint paving the way for formal coalition discussions to begin after months of paralysis in Europe’s top economy.

In the 28-page document, the parties agreed to join France in a push to “strengthen and reform” the eurozone, to limit the influx of asylum seekers to Germany to around 200,000 a year, and to refrain from tax hikes.

But Mueller lamented the SPD’S failure to secure a tax hike for the rich or a restructuring of the country’s two-tier health care system -- two major campaign pledges.

Those concerns were echoed by the SPD’S Malu Dreyer, premier of Rhineland-palatinate state, who also slammed the compromise to cap immigration.afp