German Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Lars Klingbeil has criticized the Greens for being too close to CDU chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz. “That the Greens are very, very, very behind Friedrich Merz, that’s something everyone in political Berlin is aware of” Klingbeil told the Bild-Zeitung for its Friday edition.
Klingbeil diagnoses a kind of rightward shift within the remaining coalition partner: “It’s like we always notice that the Greens are moving very much in the direction of Friedrich Merz.”
The trigger for Klingbeil’s outburst is a meeting on the previous Thursday in the apartment of former Union chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, where top politicians from the Greens and CDU, including Baerbock and Merz, are said to have been present and sipped a glass of wine together.
Klingbeil targeted the Greens for their participation in the wine evening between the joint votes of the Union and AfD in the Bundestag: “I was seriously outraged on Wednesday and Friday about what the Union did in parliament. The art of taking a break to meet for cocktails, I couldn’t have come up with that.