Berlin: Greens also say yes – Left Party decides on 31 October
After the SPD, Berlin's Greens back coalition talks with the Left: 43 of 45 delegates in favour. Talks could start on 2 November. CDU and CSU step up pressure.
Archive image · Photo: Gunnar Klack / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Berlin's Greens cleared the way on Monday for coalition talks with the Left Party and the SPD: 43 of 45 delegates at the party's state committee voted in favour, two against. Earlier, the SPD's state executive had approved the talks by 26 votes to 3. The Left Party has the final say at a party conference on 31 October; the date was pushed back because of the two-week autumn school holidays. If it agrees, negotiations are to start on 2 November, according to the SPD.
Resistance continues within the SPD: the district executives of Lichtenberg and Reinickendorf are demanding a members' vote on any coalition agreement. Four Berlin SPD members of the Bundestag, including Annika Klose and Hakan Demir, backed the talks and rejected a statement by 20 SPD lawmakers opposing them. Also contested is Left Party lawmaker Vanessa Emde, who faces expulsion over positions critical of Israel; the parliamentary group's executive discusses the case on Tuesday.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) urged the SPD and Greens: "Stop going down this path." Economy Minister Katherina Reiche (CDU) called the plans to socialise housing a "danger to Germany as a business location". The CDU/CSU youth wing demanded that Berlin be cut off from domestic intelligence information if a left-wing alliance takes office, which Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) sharply rejected. Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius saw no reason to intervene for now. Greens co-leader Felix Banaszak rejected comparisons between the Left Party and the AfD.