GERMAN TANGLE - ON SPD'S COALATION TALKS
The decision of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) to start talks for another coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will calm nerves across Europe. Since September’s inconclusive parliamentary election, efforts to form a coalition government for the continent’s largest economy have reached nowhere. The SPD, whose vote share came down by 5 percentage points since 2013, initially decided to sit in the opposition and focus on reviving the party. But after months of talks between the CDU and the Green Party to form a government collapsed, sections within the SPD pushed for another coalition bid, which was finally okayed by 56.4% of the delegates in an extraordinary party conference in Bonn last week. Defending the coalition proposal, SPD leader Martin Schulz said working with Ms. Merkel allowed the party to resist right-wing populism in Europe while championing workers’ rights at home through government policies. He said a p...







Comments
Post a Comment
share your views