CDU retreat: Saxony's Kretschmer gives 'clear no' to a minority government
Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer says the SPD must deliver in the coalition and that the debate over the AfD firewall gets the CDU "not one meter further."
Archive image · Photo: Sandro Halank / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Saxony's state premier Michael Kretschmer rejected the idea of a minority government on the sidelines of the CDU's crisis retreat in Berlin. "A clear no to a minority government," the CDU politician told ZDF's "Berlin direkt" on Sunday evening. He said the Social Democrats must deliver in the coalition rather than just make "big speeches" in Berlin.
The debate over the party's firewall against the far-right AfD gets the CDU "not one meter further," Kretschmer said. Key issues such as competitiveness, energy, bureaucracy and the labor market had not been tackled by the coalition, he added. "It only works with economic growth."
The CDU leadership has been meeting since Sunday to draw conclusions from defeats in three state elections in September. After meetings of the presidium and the executive board on Monday, party leader Friedrich Merz and general secretary Franziska Hoppermann are due to present the results at 1:30 p.m., according to dpa.