BRUSSELS, March 24. /TASS/. The leader of the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and prospective German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has lost his main bargaining chip over the German Social Democrats, with whom he plans to form a government, having conceded on the issue of increasing national debt. New compromises on migration and social spending are now possible, which will disappoint the right-wing electorate and raise doubts about the party’s future, the European edition of Politico reported.
In early March, the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union bloc began negotiations on the creation of a new coalition government with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). For the CDU/CSU, which won the largest number of votes in the February 23 parliamentary elections, the Social Democrats are the only possible partner for forming a cabinet — the bloc will not cooperate with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The SPD has long sought to change the country's Basic Law to weaken the "debt brake" - a strict rule prohibiting budget financing with new debt above a certain level. This issue was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the previous coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Last week, with the support of the CDU/CSU, the German parliament adopted the amendments, which will increase defense spending and create a special 500 billion euro infrastructure fund.
Politico says now that the Social Democrats have achieved what they wanted, they will not be forced to meet the CDU/CSU halfway on the main issues of the bloc's political agenda - tightening migration regulations and cutting excessive social spending. The positions of the two parties on these issues vastly differ, and having lost its main lever of influence, the conservative bloc is unlikely to be able to secure significant concessions from the SPD. As a result, Politico predicts, Merz will have to shift to the left and depart from his own election promises. The CDU/CSU leader had promised that the party would again become a right-wing political bloc and move away from Angela Merkel's flawed centrism policy. However, the deal with the SPD can already be considered as "downright Merkelian."
Merz now risks losing the support of his conservative electorate and pushing German citizens to support the more right-wing AfD. Concessions to the Social Democrats will weaken the CDU/CSU bloc and undermine its future as a more moderate alternative to the AfD, the newspaper believes.
The existing bitter disagreements on migration and social spending between the CDU/CSU and the SPD also risk delaying formation of a new coalition government. Initially, Merz said that the negotiations could end by Easter, but an agreement could be reached much later, Politico adds.