German SPD agrees to coalition talks with Merkel

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Germany's SPD party on Thursday voted to enter into exploratory talks for the formation of a new government coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Conservatives Union.

About 600 SPD members on Thursday gathered for the federal party congress and voted with a large majority by raising their arms to enter exploratory talks that could eventually end Germany's political crisis.

The SPD motion said the "open-ended" talks will start next week and would lead to three options: a new grand coalition, the acceptance of a minority government led by Merkel, or snap elections if no government can be formed.

“We do not have to govern at any price. But neither should we decline to rule under any circumstances. What counts is what we can deliver,” Martin Schulz told an SPD party congress in Berlin.

The SPD should enter exploratory talks with the conservative bloc open-minded, look at what kind of policy the party could push through and leave all government options on the table, Schulz said, adding: “Content is important and not the form.”

Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Martin Schulz walks onto a podium during an SPD party convention in Berlin, Germany, December 7, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Schulz said: “Our state must become stronger, our state must get better! For this, the SPD is needed.”

Germany, Europe’s political and economic powerhouse, has been struggling to build a new government since a September 24 national election in which Merkel’s conservative bloc and the SPD both lost support, while an anti-immigrant party surged into parliament, complicating the potential coalition combinations.

Merkel, her own political future on the line after 12 years at the helm, is making overtures to the center-left SPD – her partner in government over the past four years – after her bid to form a three-way coalition with two smaller parties failed.

SPD leader Martin Schulz, who first announced that the party would go into opposition after seeing its time in a Merkel-led “grand coalition” rewarded with bruising losses at the polls, is trying to convince his party to revisit that decision.

'United States of Europe' by 2025

Martin Schulz, leader of Germany's second largest party also called for the transformation of the European Union into a United States of Europe by 2025 with a common constitution.

"Europe is our life insurance," Schulz told an SPD party convention in Berlin.

Any EU members who did not agree with this federal constitution should then automatically leave the EU, said Schulz.

SPD leader Martin Schulz at an SPD party convention in Berlin, Germany, November 7, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Schulz's center-left party suffered a historic defeat in the German general elections in September this year.

Schulz also argued that only a strengthened EU would stop the advance of right-wing nationalists, citing gains they had made in Germany as well as Austria, Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands. "If we don't change course, if we don't strengthen Europe in very practical and concrete ways, then these forces will win," he warned.

He reiterated that the eurozone should have more investment and a common finance minister and budget.

Schulz said that if the SPD ends up governing with Merkel again, Berlin's stance on Europe would have to shift away from the austerity approach of Merkel and her former finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters ,Xinhua News Agency