German coalition internal strife... Social Democratic Party leader "resigns due to attacks on partner party"

(Berlin = Yonhap News) Correspondent Gye-yeon Kim = Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and co-chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), a minority faction in the German coalition government, Werbel Bas resigned on the 12th (local time).

According to dpa news agency, Minister Bas said in a statement on this day that he was resigning from both positions, saying, "Currently, I do not have the strength to fully carry out government and party duties for the time being."

He cited the death of his stepdaughter and the conflict with the majority coalition coalition, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Democratic Union (CSU), as reasons for his resignation, and claimed, "It is a difficult time for me personally, and unfortunately, public attacks from my coalition partners have also intensified."

Some in the CDU/CSU coalition have called for his resignation as labor minister, saying he is hindering the coalition's reform efforts by delaying the submission of pension and labor market reform bills.

Minister Bath announced his resignation today while the CDU was holding a leadership strategy meeting to recover from the shock of its third consecutive loss in the state legislative elections last month. Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU, nominated SPD deputy leader Alexander Schweitzer as the new labor minister in response to Baas's request to dismiss the minister.

After winning the general election in February last year, the center-right CDU/CSU coalition formed a so-called left-right grand coalition with the center-left SPD and is pushing for reforms in various fields, but is in conflict with the SPD, which traditionally prioritizes protecting the rights and interests of workers and the common people.

In German politics, as the battle over responsibility within the coalition government intensified following the landslide election victory of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a scenario was circulated that Chancellor Merz would fire Minister Bas to break the coalition government and form a minority government with only the CDU-CSU coalition.

In a survey by the public opinion polling agency Infrastructure Test Dmap released on the 1st of this month, 10% of respondents said they were satisfied with the federal government, which was the lowest since the coalition was formed in May of last year. In a YouGov survey released on the 6th, 77% of respondents believed that the coalition government was not cooperating properly. 55% predicted that the coalition government would collapse before the next general election scheduled for 2029.