German coalition reaches last-minute deals on health and building reforms
Chancellor Friedrich Merz's coalition government averted a crisis with late-night agreements on health-care and building-modernization reforms, but internal tensions persist as the legislation moves to parliament.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) announced a government agreement on a health-care reform on Wednesday, and the coalition also agreed on a building-modernization law, including a cost brake for tenants, on Thursday. The deals came after a weekend of disputes at a longer coalition committee meeting at Villa Borsig in Berlin, which Merz and SPD Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil later acknowledged involved arguments.
Klingbeil on Wednesday also presented agreed key points for the next federal budget, a step the previous SPD-led coalition had last achieved in 2022. The agreements averted a crisis, but internal tensions persist as the legislation moves to parliament.
CDU Health Minister Nina Warken said in a ZDF interview Tuesday evening she was not sure the cabinet draft would be ready by Wednesday morning, despite a last-minute meeting between Merz and Klingbeil. Union parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn said the coalition had recently fallen "out of step." CDU MP Christian von Stetten, spokesman for the Union's internal parliamentary circle of small and medium-sized enterprises — which two-thirds of Union MPs belong to — said the government "certainly" would not last four years, criticizing SPD discussions on new debt and higher taxes.
When asked if the government would last four years, Merz said "no one can guarantee anything." Klingbeil responded, "we are obliged to make it work." Political scientist Ursula Münch told NDR Info the Union and SPD are further apart than during Angela Merkel's grand coalition.
The coalition's narrow majority — 12 votes — makes parliamentary passage uncertain. The Young Group of the Union parliamentary group has 18 members, and its members have already voiced discontent with the health-care deal. The SPD's Parliamentary Left announced it would scrutinize and sharpen the cabinet draft on health insurance finances.
Klingbeil said a planned income-tax reform should target people with six-figure incomes more heavily. CSU leader Markus Söder and CSU parliamentary group leader Alexander Hoffmann signaled openness to a "wealth tax," though the Union has resisted tax increases.