Berlin – No “Red-Green Heaven” / Pas de “ciel Rouge-Vert”

E Berlin – Coalition negotiations between Grünen and SPD (social democrats) failed yesterday, hardly an hour after they had begun. Breaking point was the construction of the A 100 highway through the city, which the Greens oppose.

F Berlin – Les négotiations entre Grünen et SPD se sont terminés hier à peine une heure après le début, la cause principale étant un désaccord sur la construction de l’autoroute A 100 à travers la capitale. Read rest of translation.

The Greens accuse the SPD of not having wanted a Red-Green coalition in the first place, stating they were prepared to painful compromises. But the problem was, Landes president Bettina Jarasch said, that the parties also disagreed on infrastructure policies in general.

Re-elected mayor Klaus Wowereit said he didn’t see a sustainable basis for a future government. His party will now most probably aim at a coalition with the Christian-Democrats (CDU), who are a lot more favourable towards the A 100. A red-black coalition can count on a majority of 10 seats in the Berlin House of representatives, whereas Red-Green only would have had 2.

The premature termination of the Red-Green negotiations in Berlin casts a shadow on a future Red-Green national government. Wolfgang Thierse (SPD), vice president of the Bundestag group, said to the Berliner Tagesspiegel that he was disappointed, but “so wenig Rot-Grün der Himmel für Berlin gewesen wäre, so wenig ist Rot-Schwarz die Hölle”. His Green colleague Renate Künast, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung her former opponent had “behaved irresponsible and against the will of the majority of the city and his own party”.