German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has called on the coalition parties to demonstrate greater willingness to compromise. "The Union, CDU and CSU, and the SPD are different parties," Merz said on Tuesday in Berlin ahead of a visit to the SPD parliamentary group. "That will remain the case. But I would like to ask all of us, and this applies to the Union parliamentary group just as much as to the SPD parliamentary group, not to publicly draw red lines against each other."
He said he did not want to hear from the CDU/CSU that something "cannot be done with the Union." At the same time, he also did not want to hear from the SPD that something "cannot be done with the SPD." The Chancellor emphasised: "I want us to show the common ground that we share and to take responsibility for Germany in the same way that we drafted the coalition agreement."
Merz visited the SPD parliamentary group on Tuesday afternoon. Ahead of the meeting, the Chancellor expressed confidence in the coalition's direction. "I expect a strong sense of optimism and confidence that we are leading the country in the right direction," Merz said. He added that this was the message he intended to convey during the visit.
SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch underlined the importance of mutual understanding within the coalition. "For me, the key to making successful policy, especially in a coalition, is always the degree of empathy," Miersch said. "We need to have a sense for each other, what is possible, what is not, and what overwhelms the individual." He said that events like the Chancellor's visit to the SPD parliamentary group were always beneficial for the partnership.
Union parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn (CDU) described the Chancellor's visit to the Social Democrats as "a nice, a good sign." He said he expected a "good discussion, where one looks at what has been achieved in the last twelve months." The chair of the CSU caucus in the Bundestag, Alexander Hoffmann, interpreted the visit primarily as "a signal that this parliamentary group is functioning."
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