SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has called on the CDU/CSU not to let a two-thirds majority for an amendment to the Basic Law on better climate protection fail because of its refusal to cooperate with the Left Party. "We have to do the right thing and not make a fuss about who is talking to whom," Klingbeil told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), according to an advance release on Tuesday.
The record figure of 12,500 heat-related deaths, the low water levels with their economic consequences for trade and logistics, and the devastating wildfires made action an obligation, Klingbeil said. For that reason, the SPD-led ministries had proposed anchoring climate protection in the Basic Law as a joint task of the federal government, the states and local authorities. "Then we can proceed in a much more coordinated way," said the finance minister.
A change to the Basic Law would require a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag, meaning the governing parliamentary groups of the CDU/CSU and the SPD would depend on votes from the Greens and the Left Party. However, an incompatibility resolution passed by the CDU's federal party conference in 2018 still applies, under which the party rejects "coalitions and similar forms of cooperation with both the Left Party and the Alternative for Germany."
In the RND interview, Klingbeil pointed to an agreement in the coalition treaty under which the CDU/CSU and the SPD said they would examine including the joint task in the Basic Law. The point, he said, was to "solve problems in this country. Funding programmes must be bundled in such a way that we can better equip social facilities, hospitals and care homes with air conditioning."
For the cabinet retreat next week, it has been agreed to place a particular focus on heat protection. "That was important to me," Klingbeil said.
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