Thuringia: The coalition and the left agree on procedures for finding a majority

The coalition of Thuringia's Prime Minister Mario Voigt (CDU) has agreed in parliament with the opposition Left faction on new procedures for finding a majority. This emerges from a corresponding paper that is available to the dpa news agency. The Funke Medien Thüringen newspapers first reported on it. Several representatives of the four factions confirmed the agreement.

Voigt governs Thuringia with a coalition of the CDU, Thuringia.Gerecht and SPD. The regional party Thuringia.Gerecht emerged from the broken BSW faction - the state chairman is Vice Prime Minister and State Finance Minister Katja Wolf.

The coalition does not have a majority in the state parliament and is therefore dependent on the opposition's voting behavior. The tricky thing: An incompatibility decision from 2018 prohibits the CDU from working permanently with the Left and the AfD. According to dpa information, the new agreement with the Left on the new procedures does not have any signatures.

The paper regulates processes for finding a majority. There should be a weekly jour fixe at the level of parliamentary managers. The four parliamentary groups want to inform each other quarterly about planned bills and important motions. A traffic light system is intended to show which items on the agenda of a state parliament session are agreed, open or not agreed. In addition, there should be designated contact persons at the specialist level for policy areas.

If there is no clarification at the technical level, an agreement should first be attempted among the parliamentary managing directors or then, if necessary, at the level of the parliamentary group leaders. The head of the State Chancellery should also be able to be called in.

“It's about procedural processes and that's not always easy between four factions,” said the parliamentary managing director of the SPD parliamentary group, Janine Merz. People now want to inform each other about initiatives sooner.

The trigger for the new agreement is a shift in the majority in parliament. When Voigt still led a coalition of the CDU, BSW and SPD, the three partners had as many seats in the state parliament as the opposition AfD and Left parties.

Then the BSW faction and the newly formed Thuringia faction imploded. Gerecht now has fewer members than the BSW predecessor. A stalemate coalition thus became a minority government. This means that it is even more dependent than before on an agreement with the left in order to pass laws.