Merkel supports deal with rivals
Print Edition
GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party yesterday backed a deal to form a new German government with its center-left rivals, putting aside concerns over concessions about a minimum wage and a move to make it easier for some people to retire early.
Merkel told a conference of her Christian Democratic Union “there is a good chance that Germany and people in Germany will be doing better in 2017 than today” under the agreement.
She noted the coalition deal features, as her party demanded, no tax increases, an end to new borrowing and continuity in Berlin’s hard-nosed approach to Europe’s debt crisis. But she conceded there were also difficult compromises.
Merkel’s party emerged from the September 22 parliamentary elections with its best result in two decades. However, she had to reach across the aisle because they fell a few seats short of an absolute majority and their previous coalition partners were voted out of parliament.
In what has become the longest effort to form a government in post-World War II Germany, Merkel negotiated with the Social Democrats to form a “grand coalition” of the country’s biggest parties.
The Social Democrats, who finished a distant second at the polls, extracted concessions that include Germany’s first mandatory national minimum wage of 8.50 euros (US$11.65) per hour and a change to the pension system that will allow some longtime workers to retire at 63 on full pensions.
Some delegates at the conference said that is too much of a departure from the decision under Merkel to raise the retirement age gradually from 65 to 67.
If the accord is approved, Merkel is expected to be elected by parliament for a third four-year term on December 17.
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