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German election: Olaf Solz to seek coalition government with Green and Free Democrats

The Germans The Social Democrats are starting talks today to form a tripartite governing coalition to lead the next German government, for the first time since 2005, after winning yesterday’s parliamentary elections.

His candidate for chancellor SPD Olaf Solz says he will seek coalition government with FDP Greens and Free Democrats, saying voters voted to send Angela Merkel’s Conservatives into opposition after 16 years in the country’s leadership.

“What you are seeing is a very happy SPD,” said the finance minister of the outgoing Merkel government at the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party, grabbing a bouquet of white and red flowers.

“The voters have spoken very clearly. “They said who should form the next government.”

“Three parties have been strengthened – the Social Democrats, the Greens and the FDP – so the people of this country have given a clear mandate – these three must form the next government.”

German elections: The SPD secured 25.7% of the vote

The SPD secured 25.7% of the vote, while Merkel’s Christian Democrats / Christian Socialists fell to 24.1% (-8.9 percentage points). The Greens were at 14.8% and the FDP at 11.5%.

Olaf Solz hopes a government alliance agreement can be reached before Christmas.

But Christian Democrat Chancellor Armin Lassett said he could also try to form a government, despite defeating the Conservatives, who have recorded their worst electoral performance in history.

German stocks rose today, reflecting investor satisfaction with the FDP’s prospects of joining the next German government, coupled with the fact that Die Linke’s performance on the radical left does not allow the party to hope for government.

“On the market side, the fact that a left-wing coalition is mathematically weak is good news,” said Jens-Oliver Nicklas, an economist at LBBW, adding that for the other parties there are enough similarities to a working compromise.

“Ultimately, people and ministerial positions are likely to be more important than policies,” he says.

Consultations on the alliances have already begun

Analena Berbock

The parties will start informal consultations on possible alliances from today.

The Greens and the FDP announced last night that they would start talks with each other to find areas for compromise before starting negotiations with the SPD or the Conservatives.

Environmentalists and Social Democrats have more political affiliation to reach an alliance, while the Free Democrats say they would prefer an alliance with the Conservatives than with the center-left.

If Olaf Solz succeeds in forming a coalition government, he will be the fourth post-war Social Democrat chancellor and the first since Angela Merkel was ousted by Gerhard Schroeder in 2005, when George W. Bush was president of the United States. Jacques Chirac and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair.

However, Berlin’s partners may have to wait months to see what the new German government’s foreign policy stance will be.

Analena Berbock

Under the SPD / Greens / FDP government formation scenario, the foreign ministry may be given to the Greens, as was the case with Joska Fischer in their previous alliance with the SPD, while the FDP has no eyes but for the finance ministry.

In the field of economic policy, the President of France, Emanuel Macron, is keenly pursuing a common European fiscal policy. This goal has the support of the Greens, but is rejected by the CDU / CSU and FDP. The Greens are also pursuing a massive expansionist policy for renewable energy.

One firmament of the equation is that the future government will not include the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which shrank to 10.3%, from 12.6% four years ago when it entered the German parliament. After all, all political parties rule out the participation of the German far right in a coalition government.

Consultations on the formation of the next government may take weeks or even months to complete: in 2017, an agreement on the formation of the “grand coalition” was reached only in February.

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