Before a meeting of the SPD executive committee, CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz offered the Social Democrats the opportunity to work together to find solutions to pressing problems. “We expressly offer the Social Democrats the opportunity to participate in the necessary decisions and to work together to find solutions,” Merz wrote on Saturday in his newsletter “MerzMail.”
Last Sunday’s European elections were a warning signal “to all of us” to solve the country’s major problems now and “above all not to further exacerbate the problems associated with the large number of non-integrated immigrants, for example with citizenship law,” wrote Merz.
In Germany – and not just in the East – there is more at stake than just the fate of a coalition, Merz’s letter continues. Democracy is in serious danger. “Not to act now and not to make a fundamental change in policy in key areas of domestic and economic policy would simply be irresponsible.”
On Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet with the SPD executive committee to analyze his party’s worst result in a national election in more than 130 years. He also wants to make progress in budget negotiations with Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) and Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens). The next two and a half weeks are considered crucial for the traffic light coalition.
Merz also speculated on the question of why the AfD was able to gain so much in the European elections despite scandals involving its top candidates and why it remains so strong in the East. “Could it be that a growing proportion of voters are simply completely frustrated by the failure of our state in everyday life and that is why they are voting so strongly, no matter which dubious people are at the top?” he wrote. Given the current situation, the SPD in particular should not now resort to “muddling through the next 15 months”.
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) has called for cross-party solutions to key issues. “It is time to act. Germany must now find solutions to a few key issues that are really stirring up this country – major cross-party solutions,” he said on Saturday at a party conference of the Saxon Union in Löbau. He cited migration and energy policy as examples.
Then people’s trust will be regained, he continued. Social peace must be restored. Kretschmer spoke out in favor of the deportation of foreign violent criminals, among other things.
