The small CDU party meeting is expected to clearly support a coalition government with the SPD according to Baden-Württemberg state leader Manuel Hagel on Monday. “I expect a very high approval rate because it is a good coalition agreement” he said to Tagesspiegel (Monday edition). “From the 28.5 percent of voter ballots – and I would have preferred better results – Friedrich Merz and our negotiation team have done their best.”
Hagel admitted that there was discontent during the coalition negotiations about making too many concessions to the Social Democrats, but called for people to “first let the government do its work and build up lost trust with the first major projects from the coalition agreement.” The top priority must be to revive the economy: “Therefore, the agreed structural reforms in the areas of the labor market, bureaucracy reduction and taxes must be tackled quickly.”
A possible normalization of the AfD or any direct cooperation with them was categorically ruled out by Hagel: “The AfD hates the CDU and everything we stand for.