Schwerin/Rostock. The signs point to red-red-green in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: After two weeks of exploratory talks, the SPD, the Left and, on Saturday, the Greens have decided to start coalition negotiations for the first three-party alliance in the history of the federal state.
The negotiations are scheduled to begin on Monday. To kick things off, the negotiators want to make a joint press statement at 2 p.m., as the SPD announced. Participants were the SPD state leader and Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig, Left state leader Hennis Herbst and Green Party state leader Claudia Müller.
The ministers' positions should be discussed at the very end, emphasized Schwesig, who was satisfied with the exploratory discussions of the past few weeks: "They were very good discussions."
Müller emphasized at the small party conference of the Greens in Rostock that all three possible coalition partners were very clear on the issue of right-wing extremism. This is currently the greatest threat to democracy in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. “That’s why we won’t be working with the AfD,” said Müller. With a view to green priorities in the negotiations, she referred to climate protection, which must be consistently implemented but socially fair.
The AfD became the strongest force in the state elections on September 20th. However, with 32 seats, it does not have a majority in the Schwerin state parliament with a total of 71 members. The SPD (29), the Greens (5) and the Left (5) together have more than half of the seats. If they form a government, they will have 39 seats, three more than they need for a majority.
The three parties have big plans. “We want to be more than an alliance of three parties,” said Schwesig on Friday evening. “We want to be there for everyone: in the city and in the country, for young and old, for our voters and also for those who are skeptical or who didn’t vote for us.” Left regional leader Herbst referred to the planned greater citizen participation in the state, for example with citizens' councils.
According to the information, those involved in the explorations have already agreed on key projects for the next five years. “With the MV plan, an additional 1.9 billion euros will flow from the special fund into the modernization of the country by 2035,” said the negotiators. “The daycare center remains free of charge, schools will be further modernized and the teaching provision will be improved.” The partners want to work to maintain all hospital locations and create 1,000 new or renovated dormitory places for trainees and students.
The projects also include a discounted youth ticket for local public transport, more citizen participation and a parliamentary committee of inquiry into right-wing extremist networks. The latter was included in the exploratory paper at the instigation of the Left, as Herbst told the German Press Agency.
The coalition negotiations are to be led by a main group of top representatives of the three parties involved. Seven working groups will work on the individual subject areas: finance and digitalization, agriculture and climate protection, economy and energy, education and culture, social affairs and health, interior and local authorities as well as special topics (federal and European). In the end, state party conferences of all three parties will decide on the coalition agreement and the formation of the new state government.
There isn't much time left to forge the three-way alliance. The state parliament meets for its constituent session on October 20th. The state constitution then gives four weeks to elect the Prime Minister. That would be November 17th at the latest. The SPD politician Schwesig has never left any doubt that she is aiming for her next term in office.
