While the coalition agreement includes such a measure, Merz stressed that all commitments are conditional on the funding available, referring to a clause in the 144-page coalition agreement stating that every policy \u2014 from tax relief to infrastructure spending \u2014 must be financially viable before it can be implemented.<\/p>\n
That is stirring confusion within his potential junior partner.<\/p>\n
SPD co-leader Saskia Esken responded that the tax cut was \u201ca clear agreement,\u201d arguing that \u201cworkers and the economy\u201d need a signal of confidence. \u201cIt is firmly stated in the coalition contract,\u201d she told Rheinische Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Foreign policy is also fracturing along party lines. In his TV interview, Merz reiterated support for sending long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, in coordination with European partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n But acting Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, a senior SPD figure who is likely to retain his role<\/a>, responded bluntly. \u201cI never said I was in favor of that,\u201d he told an SPD event in Hannover on Monday<\/a>. He warned there were \u201cmany good arguments\u201d against the delivery, and cast doubt on the feasibility of European alignment.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the SPD is divided internally. The party\u2019s youth wing, Jusos \u2014 representing around 12 percent of members \u2014 has come out forcefully against the agreement, particularly objecting to its strict migration measures. Jusos leader Philipp T\u00fcrmer called the agreement a \u201cticking time bomb\u201d and said: \u201cOur vote is rejection. For Jusos to support it, significant improvements would be necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a call for renegotiation \u2014 a demand that SPD leadership has flatly rejected. \u201cThere will be no second round,\u201d party chair Lars Klingbeil said. \u201cIf this fails, there will be new elections or a minority government.\u201d<\/p>\n Roughly 358,000 SPD members are eligible to vote on the coalition deal until April 29. If it is approved, a Bundestag vote to make Merz chancellor will likely be held on May 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the coalition agreement includes such a measure, Merz stressed that all commitments are conditional on the funding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1945,11070,1824,809,46,14308],"class_list":{"0":"post-22406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-friedrich-merz","11":"tag-german-politics","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-negotiations","14":"tag-policy","15":"tag-saskia-esken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114342872097983362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}