2017 coalition talks burdened by “symbolic political conflict”

Energy policy was a burden on the 2017 coalition talks because the Green Party, the conservatives (CDU/CSU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) narrowed the discussions down to a “symbolic political conflict”, writes Jakob Schlandt in Tagesspiegel. The parties could have found more common ground had they not argued only about the 2020 climate target and an accelerated coal exit, writes Schlandt in an end-of-year review 2017. In the upcoming coalition talks between Angela Merkel’s conservative block of CDU and CSU with the Social Democrats (SPD), it will be “exciting to see how [the parties] want to solve the dilemma that the 2020 climate target will be significantly missed without very drastic measures”, writes Schlandt.

Read the article in German here.

For background, read CLEW’s coalition watch and the dossier Vote2017 - German elections and the Energiewende.