State politics | Berlin: First steps towards red-green-red

In wait: The Left, the Greens and the SPD are meeting for the first time this week for exploratory talks. Photo: dpa/Sebastian Gollnow Red-Green-Red clears the first hurdle: After the state party conference of the Left Party decided on Friday to hold exploratory talks with the Greens and SPD, the prospective coalition partners have now accepted the offer of talks. Already on Friday evening - less than 20 minutes after the end of the Left Party conference - the Green state chairmen Nina Stahr and Philmon Ghirmai sent out a press release. “We are ready to start negotiations as soon as possible,” it says. The Green state leadership had already met for talks with Left representatives the previous week.

The Social Democrats followed on Saturday evening. The SPD state executive committee decided to engage in exploratory talks. The two state chairmen Steffen Krach and Bettina König as well as the designated parliamentary group leader Derya Caglar are to lead the negotiations for the SPD. On the Left side, the state chairmen Maximilian Schirmer and Kerstin Wolter, the top candidate Elif Eralp and left-wing faction leader Tobias Schulze will lead the discussions. There is also former State Secretary Wenke Christoph as a “political note taker”. The state chairmen Ghirmai and Stahr as well as the top candidates Werner Graf and Bettina Jarasch will negotiate for the Greens.

Explorations represent preliminary negotiations for coalition talks. At the end, the parties usually decide on an exploratory paper that is only a few pages long. This is followed by coalition negotiations, in which detailed agreements on projects in the legislature are agreed. Finally, the parties then decide on a coalition agreement.

The explorations will begin this week. An exploratory process lasting several weeks is expected. The Left had actually planned to hold individual discussions with the SPD and the Greens. However, they announced on Monday that they would initially meet in a three-person round on Thursday. The two parties describe the appointment as a “joint preliminary discussion” for exploratory discussions.

After the explorations have ended, an extraordinary left-wing state party conference will decide whether to start coalition negotiations. There are numerous left-wing politicians who are critical of participation in government, but it is unclear how large their voting weight will be at the party conference. The Left had already decided in the spring that there should be a ballot vote on the coalition agreement among the Left members. The regional association currently has more than 19,000 members. The Greens also decided on such a strike vote last week. There, party rights had pushed for the basic vote. According to the current status of the SPD, a party conference should decide on the coalition agreement.

At least on the part of the Social Democrats, enthusiasm for the negotiations appears to be limited. “The coming weeks will not be a walk in the park, it will be a rocky road,” said SPD state chairman Steffen Krach to the dpa news agency. There are “tough chunks” in the explorations. Krach also announced unusually early on that he would not seek a government position himself, but rather wanted to concentrate on his role as parliamentary group leader in the House of Representatives.

Krach sees dealing with anti-Semitism as the biggest obstacle to a coalition. "There must be a binding agreement that not only condemns anti-Semitism and affirms Israel's right to exist, but also provides clear consequences for anti-Semitic incidents," he said, referring to a successful exploratory result. The Greens also demand “clarification” on the issue. After the election Sunday, there were increasing allegations against the Left Party that it tolerated radical enemies of Israel in its ranks. Most recently, the presence of a supporter of the controversial Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at the Left election party in Neukölln caused criticism.

If the explorations fail, the SPD and the Greens could also form a coalition with the CDU. Such a black-green-red alliance would only have a narrow majority of three votes in the House of Representatives. So far, the CDU has not made a corresponding offer for talks. Shortly after the election, the Greens showed a clear tendency towards red-green-red. The SPD state chairman Krach recently stated that he would also speak to the CDU if they invited.

A third option is being discussed internally by the Social Democrats: The SPD could parliamentarily tolerate a minority government of The Left and the Greens. Krach is also said to have been open to this thought experiment.

"The coming weeks will not be a walk in the park, it will be a rocky road."

However, the sympathy among the Greens and the Left for this model is manageable. “Our task is to form a stable government that together has a majority in parliament,” said top candidate Werner Graf to the “Morgenpost”. "So I don't see that that's a good option." The Left Party also fears that a minority government would not be able to carry out continuous government work.

At the same time, civil society groups are also making demands on a possible red-green-red coalition. “With this legislative period, the state government has the historic opportunity to set the course against racism, the shift to the right and fascism,” says an open letter from 41 non-governmental organizations and political groups. "Especially in these times, a left-wing state government must be judged by its actions for migration rights."

The signatories demand that the state of Berlin make full use of humanitarian residency regulations. Hardship commissions in the asylum authorities should be strengthened. The “City ID” is also intended to make it possible for people to use services from the state of Berlin regardless of their residence status, and a special health card is intended to improve medical care for foreigners without a secure residence status. At the federal level, the state of Berlin should work to ensure that reporting obligations from offices to the immigration authorities are no longer required.

In the past, politicians from the Greens and Die Linke have signaled support for the demands. “In your government responsibility, we now expect you to plan and implement concrete measures towards the legalization of people without papers in Berlin,” they say in the direction of the investigators.

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