Bovenschulte accuses conservatives of 'hysteria mode' in row over Left Party
Bremen's mayor criticises the CDU and CSU for equating the Left Party with the AfD. After the SPD and Greens backed talks in Berlin, the Left decides on 31 October.
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Bremen Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD), who has led an alliance of the SPD, Greens and Left Party since 2019, sharply criticised the CDU and CSU in the Tagesspiegel. "I call on the Union to get out of its completely irrational and irresponsible hysteria mode," he said. "The Union is devaluing the concept of extremism." Bovenschulte recalled that only an agreement with the Left Party made possible the second round of voting in which Merz was elected chancellor, and that the CDU in Saxony and Thuringia depends on cooperation with the Left Party groups there. In Saxony-Anhalt, by contrast, a takeover by right-wing extremists is looming, which he said was something completely different from a takeover by democratic parties.
The SPD and Greens in Berlin voted on Monday for coalition talks with the Left Party, whose state congress decides on 31 October. Chancellor Merz told the Junge Union's Deutschlandtag on Saturday: "Stop it." CSU leader Markus Söder said: "If we are talking about firewalls, then one is needed to the left." CDU lawmaker Christoph Ploß spoke of an "absolute breach of the dam", while the Union's interior policy spokesman Alexander Throm floated withholding sensitive organised-crime information from a Left-led Berlin government.