The conservative block headed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) have closed on Wednesday the agreement to govern together the next legislature, a pact that have been negotiating for several weeks and that will make the Democristian Friedrich Merz in the new chancellor of Germany.
The parties have already confirmed the end of the negotiations, waiting for at 3:00 p.m. to appear Merz, their Bavarian partner, Markus Sobeer, and one of the main social democratic leaders, Lars Klingbeil, to give the details of this new alliance.
Germany thus returns to the ‘great coalition’ (‘Grosse Koalition’ in German), a formula that is not new but that a priori both the CDU and the SPD sought to rule out in campaign. The electoral arithmetic, however, ended up demonstrating that it was the only option to guarantee a government and at the same time keep the sanitary cord on the ultra -right.
During his time as Chancellor, Angela Merkel used this ‘great coalition’ in twelve of his 16 years in power, in his final stage with the current chief of acting government, Olaf Scholz, as number two of the cabinet. The agreement that has now been signed theoretically is called to last the entire legislature, that is, another four years.
Scholz has already announced that he will not be part of the new Council of Ministers, although he will remain as a deputy in the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament.