Berlin: The Greens and SPD vote for coalition talks with the Left

After the Berlin SPD, the Greens also decided to hold joint coalition negotiations with the Left Party. At a small party conference that evening, a large majority voted in favor. Only two of the 45 delegates voted against it.

The SPD state executive committee had previously spoken out in favor of coalition talks at a digital meeting that evening. According to the party, 26 board members voted in favor of the negotiations and three voted against.

Left votes at the end of October

The Left Party will only vote on this at a party conference on October 31st. If approved, coalition talks could begin at the beginning of November. If this succeeds, Left Party leader Elif Eralp could become the first governing mayor of her party in Berlin.

The Greens and SPD expressed themselves equally positively about the explorations. Green parliamentary group leader Werner Graf said: “We have really achieved a lot of green successes in the exploratory paper.” There are more cycle paths, more quality local transport and no further construction of the A100 motorway. There will be more traffic calming. “A new era will dawn in transport policy,” explained Graf.

Praise from the Greens and SPD

The SPD also praised the joint paper. “We managed to successfully introduce a lot of SPD positions into the explorations and we want to continue this in the coalition negotiations,” explained the SPD state chairmen Bettina König and Steffen Krach. “Today we received a clear mandate from the state executive board to do this.”

In the election for the Berlin House of Representatives on September 20th, the Left was the strongest force with 25.7 percent. Behind them, the CDU achieved 18.8 percent, the AfD 16.3 percent, the Greens 14.3 percent and - with their historically worst result - the SPD 12.1 percent. The previously ruling CDU/SPD coalition clearly lost its majority.

Agreement on socialization

The Left, the Greens and the SPD achieved a breakthrough in their exploratory talks on Saturday. Among other things, they agreed on the corporatization of large real estate groups, a new construction program for 100,000 apartments and greater support for local public transport.

The parties agreed on the exploratory paper in what were at times laborious negotiations. In particular, discussions about how the Left deals with anti-Semitism, fueled by several incidents within their own party, made the conversations more difficult.

A joint declaration on this should be included in the coalition agreement if a government is formed. In it, the possible coalition is committed to protecting Jewish life, Israel's right to exist and a two-state solution that should enable both Israel's security and the self-determination of the Palestinians. If the principles are violated, sanctions up to and including exclusion from the parliamentary group are envisaged.