Germany's Greens call coalition talks result 'poison for our country'

Alsharq Tribune- Eyad Amr

Germany's Greens have harshly criticized the results of the exploratory talks between the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democrats (SPD) on forming a government.

Instead of solving structural problems, the parties want to do as they did in previous centre-left governments and pour money into everything, Green party leader Franziska Brantner said in Berlin on Saturday. "That is poison for our country."

Co-party leader Felix Banaszak emphasized: "We are further from an agreement today than we have been in the last few days."

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the are likely to need the votes of the Greens to pass the security package they agreed on a few days ago.

They had agreed to relax the debt brake for higher defence spending and to create a debt-financed special fund of €500 billion ($528 billion) for infrastructure.

The changes, for which a two-thirds majority is needed, are to be decided by the existing Bundestag – in the next Bundestag it will be more difficult because of new majorities.

Specifically, the Greens are accusing the CDU and SPD of wanting to finance their election promises with these new funds instead of using the money for actual improvements.

"We see that the €500 billion are obviously not supposed to be used for additional infrastructure projects, but for election promises, pensions for mothers and commuter allowances," said Brantner.

It was "depressing" that climate protection does not play a role, Banaszak added.