Germany’s Merkel slams SPD plan to revise labor reforms

STRALSUND: German Chancellor Angela Merkel hit out at her coalition partners on Saturday for proposing revisions to welfare reforms credited with driving the country’s economic success, ahead of elections in which their candidate has moved in front of her in some polls.

The Social Democrats (SPD) have lagged Merkel’s conservatives in opinion polls for years. But support for the center-left party has surged since it nominated former European Parliament President Martin Schulz as its candidate in late January.

Schulz sought to appeal to the left of his party on Monday, saying corrections were needed to the “Agenda 2010” reforms, which were drawn up by former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder but cost him his job and split the party.

The reforms, unveiled in 2003, saw many SPD members storm out and join the far-left Linke party.

But Merkel praised the program at an election campaign event in her constituency of Stralsund in northern Germany on Saturday, saying: “That’s why I said when I entered office 11 years ago that former chancellor Schroeder rendered great service to Germany with Agenda 2010.”

She said the conservatives had made some changes to the reforms since 2005, when they entered a coalition government, but had remained true to the core of the program because it had put more people in work, with the number of jobless halving since 2005.