CDU-Green coalition deal alters Germany's political landscape

GERMANY: GERMANY'S POLITICAL landscape experienced a minor earthquake in Hamburg yesterday when the Christian Democrats (CDU) agreed in principle to form a coalition with the Green Party.

The announcement of Germany's first CDU-Green state coalition government breaks a 30-year ideological taboo, and reshuffles Germany's coalition cards before next year's federal election.

Hamburg's CDU mayor Ole von Beust began talks with the Greens after losing his absolute majority in February's city-state election.

An unnamed Green official told Spiegel Online yesterday that a coalition agreement would be presented this evening.

"There is nothing more standing in the way of a deal. It just needs to be signed," the official said.

Both parties confirmed, without going into details, that they had found compromises on the most serious Green concerns: plans to build a coal-fired power station adjacent to the city's major river, the Elbe, and to open Hamburg port to bigger ships by dredging the seabed.

The Hamburg decision will have far-reaching consequences at federal level. The CDU traditionally co-operates with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) while, for seven years, the Greens were the junior partner in Chancellor Schröder's government.

"I'm happy about this development because it gives us more options," said Renate Künast, a former Green minister in Berlin. "But on a federal level, there are still worlds between us and the CDU."

CDU-Green coalitions are not without precedent in Germany. The two parties work together at local government level in a total of 34 municipalities, including the Black Forest city of Freiburg.

"This premiere in Hamburg has charm for both the CDU and Greens because it increases their coalition options on a federal level," said Prof Eckhard Jesse, political scientist at the University of Chemnitz.

"The CDU and Greens will still want to the co-operate with their preferred partners, but they could now have a second preference ready in case the numbers don't add up."

Green Party leaders face a serious challenge to convince party rank-and-file of the benefits of co-operating with a party still viewed as its most bitter political enemy.

And co-operation at a federal level is far from a given: the Greens are hugely critical of what it sees as the CDU's industry cronyism, while the CDU is determined to roll back the Schröder-era nuclear phase-out pushed by the Greens.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times