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German political parties set up negotiations in a series of allies on Sunday, with the aim of rivaling potential political candidates for the next 16-year-old Chancellor’s seat.
All of the Social Democrats, who won the most votes in a contested election last week, about 25.7% of voters, and Merkel’s Christian Democrats, who faced the worst election by 24.1%, want to win a third – and fourth party – Greens, a resident with 14.8% of the vote, and free Democrats (FDP), with a project of 11.5%.
Since there were at least two pairs between the two leading parties it took them all to ask for the right to start a discussion. However, in order to lead the next world economy in Europe, the SPD or the CDU must form an alliance with the two parties. Many Greens prefer to join an alliance with the SPD while the FDP has expressed their interest in forming an alliance with the CDU.
The SPD negotiating team, led by chancellor Olaf Scholz, met with the FDP on Sunday afternoon and met with the Greens in the evening. The FDP is scheduled to meet with CDU chancellor Armin Laschet and his team on Sunday evening, while the Greens will address those who will hold the re-election on Tuesday.
Lars Klingbeil, secretary general of the SPD, described their discussions within the FDP, as “very helpful and creative”.
A FDP colleague, Volker Wissing, said “it is clear that there are obstacles. But what is also clear is that we are determined to form a reform party that will move our country forward”.
Many Germans seem to favor the “traffic light” agreement – marked by the red, yellow and green colors of the parties – led by the SPD and Greens and the FDP. On Friday, a survey showed that 51% of Germans prefer “traffic light” while only 18% support the CDU-led alliance.
Laschet also said his party also had the right to lead the negotiations, with little thought to the SPD and CDU – although his party was down 8.9 percent compared to the 2017 election.
A research Sunday’s release shows that his party’s popularity has plummeted since the election, then dropped three points to 21%. The SPD scored two points to reach 28 percent.
Following a series of bad elections last week, the Greens and the FDP have changed the way Germany investigates the alliance on the subject: They began talking to each other first, and were planning to continue the discussion thinking that they had reached an agreement with the party they wanted to control. This can make them more likely to be election observers.
“Both parties represent change, but not change the same,” Green Fellow Robert Robert Habeck said on Friday.
FDP leader Christian Lindner also spoke of the growing patience within the Christian Democratic Party, formed by the CDU and its Bavarian party, CSU. Last week, CDU-CSU leaders sent leaflets stating that Laschet should form an alliance, outlining the difficulties it could face in leading the CDU-CSU alliance.
“Some CDU statements suggest that negotiations with the SPD should fail first [CDU/CSU] they are back, ”he told the German newspaper Bild. “Our country cannot be expected to do this. We are ready for a major discussion with a [CDU/CSU] I expect the same from them. ”
Many German observers are concerned that negotiations on a coalition could last for months, largely due to its complexity. But leaders of the four major parties were all concerned over the weekend that a new deal could be reached by the end of December. After the German elections in 2017, negotiations continued for six months.