The agreement reached by Merz with the Green Party on Friday March 14 for his ambitious programme to hike the defence spending and infrastructure in the context of the threat from the U.S. president that the transatlantic ally will cut off its assistance to its European ally as per the MAGA programme of Trump is a major step... Already Merz has reached with understanding with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) on the formation of the coalition government and the details of the budget. Now the agreement with the Greens will help the new coalition head to pass the budget with a big majority in the new Bundestag which will be meeting shortly.

This welcome development for the German politics has been possible due to Europe’s running battle with the U.S. president Donald Trump in which Germany faced big attacks from the U.S. Chancellor designate Merz was also personally attacked by the MAGA leaders in USA. Now Merz seems to have decided to opt for a make Germany strong policy by proposing to present a enhanced budget which will help the economy to be stronger and meet the challenges of the present ailments faced by the industries. Merz said after the agreement with Greens “Germany is making its large contribution to the defence of freedom and peace in Europe. Germany is back”

In the February 23 national elections, out of the total of 630 seats in Bundestag, the centre-right CDU/CSU got 208 seats as against the far right AFD’s 151 which doubled its voting percentage to 20.7 per cent this time as against the earlier elections. The SPD got 121 seats, the greens 85, the left wing De Linke 64 and the others only one. The CDU/CSU led by Frederick Merz has already reached an understanding with SPD for government formation. This gives them a clear majority of a total of 329 seats as against the required majority of 316 seats in Bundestag. But still the understanding with the Greens will make the total 414. The far right FD with 151 seats and the Left with 64 seats are expected to oppose the new coalition government from their own perspective.

In Europe, the major countries are having coalition governments. The budgetary policies emerge as big issues between the parties inside the coalition. This is true for other countries like France, Portugal, Spain where the coalitions are ruling and there are both Right and Left combinations with opposing approaches to the budget issues. That way, the agreement of the new German coalition on the coming budget with the support of nearly two-third is a personal victory of the Chancellor designate Merz and his political skill in negotiations.

Greens were earlier opposed to the contents of the new budget proposals but after prolonged negotiations, their leaders finally agreed when Merz explained how this package was the answer of Germany to the Trump’s rantings against the U.S.’s European allies. He explained to the Greens that the hike in defence spending was needed to be independent of the U.S. at the present stage of Trump’s unilateral actions globally.

As regards the far right AFD, the party has come to realize that the earlier upsurge in favour of AFD is gone now. The open intervention by Elon Musk and the vice president of U.S. J D Vance in favour of AFD has antagonized lot of right camp supporters. This has helped the CDU/CSU. So the AFD is lying a bit low. The far right party is ready with its programme to act as the only real opposition in Bundestag so that any slippage by Merz government can be taken advantage of by AFD. The AFD has been boycotted by all other centrist and liberal parties. So AFD has to fight this coalition government alone.

At the other end, the Left wing De Linke is rejuvenated after its unexpected win of 64 seats, more than 10 per cent in new Bundestag as against its tally of 38 in the earlier elections. For De Linke, the advantage is that that it can act as a real opposition from the Left side focusing on all the slippages in relation to the measures for the workers and other sections of the common people. The Social Democrats are now part of coalition, so the Left may target the section of SPD base who will be disenchanted with the working of the new coalition.

The other wing of Left BSW has no seat in new Parliament though in the outgoing Bundestag, the BSW had 10 members who left De Linke. BSW has got highly popular leaders. Both De Linke and BSW will be working to improve their respective support base as the new coalition starts functioning. A mood of optimism is back in Germany. There is no threat of right take over as was feared late last year. The country’s politics has gone back to normal. Both the AFD and the Left will be acting as opposition from their respective end. The country will be ruled by the coalition of two parties which are known as normal parties of governance. (IPA Service)