Top officials from Germany’s three-party ruling coalition were still locked in talks after around 18 hours seeking agreement on issues including modernizing Germany’s highway system and measures to protect the climate.
(Bloomberg) — Top officials from Germany’s three-party ruling coalition were still locked in talks after around 18 hours seeking agreement on issues including modernizing Germany’s highway system and measures to protect the climate.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats began their meeting in the chancellery Sunday evening. They’re trying to put recent public bickering behind them and push ahead with enacting policies agreed in the coalition accord that are important for Germany’s transition to a more environmentally friendly and technologically advanced economy.
Scholz’s chief spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said Monday at the regular government news conference that he had spoken with the chancellor shortly before 11:30 a.m. in Berlin and the negotiations were nearing their conclusion.
“There has been a positive outcome but it takes as long as it takes,” Hebestreit said, adding that senior members of each party would likely brief the media together sometime around the early afternoon in Berlin. Scholz’s talks with his Dutch counterpart in Rotterdam on Monday evening would begin promptly, Hebestreit said.
Although the coalition is unlikely to break apart anytime soon, the discord in Berlin has disrupted business at the European Union level and is an unwelcome distraction for Scholz as he focuses on Germany’s role in the international alliance supporting Ukraine.
Tensions boiled into the open last week when Robert Habeck, the Greens economy minister who is also the vice chancellor, criticized the FDP and urged the three parties to avoid obsessing about opinion polls and their media profiles.
Scholz’s coalition had pledged to avoid the grueling all-night meetings that were a feature of Angela Merkel’s previous governments.
–With assistance from Michael Nienaber and Kamil Kowalcze.
(Updates with Scholz spokesman starting in third paragraph)
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