Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has warned the Union and the SPD to make progress in their talks on a new government. Steinmeier said that “the formation of a government is the number one topic of discussion, here in Berlin and throughout Germany – all eyes are on the parties and their top representatives.” Union and SPD want to conclude their exploratory talks on Thursday. On Friday, the SPD leadership will meet to decide whether to recommend the start of coalition negotiations. If a SPD party congress planned for January 21st agrees, real coalition negotiations could finally begin four months after the general election.
Since last Sunday, CDU, CSU and SPD are already conducting exploratory talks. Progress has been made in several working groups – such as in business, transport and digitization.
Now that the paper on economic and transport policy has become public, the debate on consultaions is likely to continue.
