Coalition leaders clash over Bas resignation but insist government will hold
Conservative caucus leader Frei says the SPD's language was "excessive," while SPD caucus chief Miersch calls the coalition stable. The two remain split on early retirement at 63.
Archive image · Photo: Dr. Frank Gaeth / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Following Bärbel Bas's resignation as federal labor minister and from all other posts, the parliamentary leaders of Germany's conservatives and Social Democrats clashed on public broadcaster ARD's talk show "Caren Miosga" over the tone within the governing coalition. Thorsten Frei of the CDU criticized SPD reactions, in which party leaders had accused the conservatives of "indecent" and "inhumane" behavior. The SPD had "of course gone too far," Frei said. "The choice of words was excessive and did not reflect the facts."
SPD caucus leader Matthias Miersch countered: "There were these constant attacks," he said of the conservatives, while stressing that individual politicians, not the entire conservative caucus, had behaved badly. Frei noted that only one CDU lawmaker had attacked Bas. Both explicitly backed the alliance: "I am quite sure that this coalition is stable," Miersch said. Frei conceded weaknesses in its public image: "We certainly need to work better on that."
Policy differences remain. Frei wants to abolish penalty-free retirement after 45 years of contributions, known as retirement at 63, and warned against breaking individual points out of the pension reform. Miersch called it "a major pension reform" but wants to take another look at retirement at 63 because many people see it as unfair. On Saxony-Anhalt, both said the situation was a matter for the state CDU.