German chancellor Friedrich Merz has scheduled a crunch meeting with his centre-left coalition partners on Wednesday, September 3, to try to settle increasingly public rows over how to balance the budget.
Just four months after taking office, Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) have been openly clashing over Merz’s plans for cuts in what he says is an “unaffordable” welfare system.
SPD Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has instead been pushing for tax increases on top earners, an idea Merz has rejected.
Merz is expected to meet with Klingbeil and SPD co-leader and Labour Minister Bärbel Bas in the late afternoon. Markus Söder, head of the CSU—the CDU’s Bavarian sister party—will also attend.
The meeting comes days after Bas raised eyebrows by describing claims that Germany’s welfare system is unaffordable as “bullshit.”
Merz hit back at this in an interview with Sat1 television on Tuesday, saying he had spoken to Bas and told her “this is not the sort of language I want used within the coalition.” He added that €5 billion could be saved by making cuts to benefits for the unemployed and low earners.
Over the next few weeks, the coalition will have to finalise the budget for this year and sign off the one for 2026, while deciding how to plug a budget deficit projected to reach €30 billion in 2027.
The friction between the two parties has sparked memories of the fractious three-way coalition under previous SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz, which fell apart last year after constant internal bickering over fiscal policy.
The CDU/CSU won the resulting early general election in February but—thanks in part to the ‘firewall’ preventing collaboration with populists Alternative für Deutschland—was left with only the SPD as a viable coalition partner.
