From citizenship to renting: What to expect when Germany’s coalition talks conclude

Can you hear that? No? Don’t worry, no-one else can either. It’s the sound of coalition negotiations between the CDU, the CSU, and the SPD. There’s been the usual flurry of tactical briefings and targeted leaks, of course.

Yet the overall roar of the world around us has been so loud as to totally drown out the muffled voices of Friedrich Merz (CDU), Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), and Lars Klingbeil with Saskia Esken (SPD) in the negotiating room – even when they’re raised.

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As of Friday, they have been shut in this room for final negotiations – and as all four know, the only way back out is a coalition agreement. The alternative door leading to a CDU-CSU tie-up with the AfD has been bricked up, with Merz and Dobrindt having agreed not to use their sledgehammer (well, until 2029…).

Backing out the way they came in is not an option, either: President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will not call another set of elections. In 2017, when the only option was yet another ‘Grand Coalition’ of this type and the SPD ran away screaming, Steinmeier sternly shooed them back into the room.

So what are the three party big-wigs and their negotiating teams now talking about – and what can we expect when they emerge through that one door, drawn and pale, yet just about managing a smile, in a few days’, weeks’, or (unlikely, but not impossible:) months’ time?

Here’s what we know thus far, what we can extrapolate from it, and how it will affect us.

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Immigration and citizenship

A lot of foreigners in Germany have been worried about the prospect of a Friedrich-Merz-led government – even the ones who, like me, have long held German passports. Given his love of borderline-racist language, manifesto pledges to reverse dual-citizenship legislation, and, most recently, January’s attempt to seal Germany’s borders with AfD support, how could they not have been worried?

However, as predicted, Merz’ dog-whistle is worse than his bite – primarily because the SPD have muzzled him from the start. Even having been shorn down from a 25 percent to a 16 percent share of the vote, the SPD have no reason to agree to a coalition deal which reverses one of their flagship policies from the previous government, and so CDU-CSU plans have been taken off the table in preliminary talks.

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There are, however, worrying noises being made about expanding the grounds on which dual nationals can have their German citizenship revoked to include transgressions such as ‘supporting terrorism’ and ‘anti-Semitism’. This should concern everyone with two passports – even if we don’t plan to commit hate-crime anytime soon. After all, everyone knows how difficult it is to interpret what constitutes these catch-all terms; and everyone knows how easy it is for miscarriages of justice to occur.

I’m not too worried just yet, though. Even if the SPD does agree to something along these lines, Karlsruhe will kick it out at the first judicial review: for very good historical reasons, the constitutional barriers to stripping people of German citizenship are very, very high.

In return – and to shore up their right-wing credentials as they try to convince AfD voters to come back into the fold – the CDU-CSU will need to a show of force about immigration (which even SPD voters and a lot of immigrants agree has long been too high).

Nevertheless, no-one really wants to break European law. So on border control, expect some face-saving compromise about “seeking dialogue with our neighbouring countries vis-à-vis returning failed asylum seekers while we work towards a European solution…” Also, there will be plans to better monitor and, if necessary, detain refugees with psychiatric disorders: nobody can stomach another Aschaffenburg.

READ ALSO: Germany’s next government could make it easier to strip citizenship from dual nationals

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Economy and spending

Here, the direction of travel is already very clear: there will be lots of money sloshing around for defence and infrastructure. So if your work is related to either of these two areas, the next four years will be relatively comfortable.

What is more, the expensive transport policies of the outgoing tripartite coalition will be continued more or less unchanged. As a recent leak confirmed, despite CSU doubts, the Deutschland-Ticket will not be axed (although the price-tag is still blank), as will Volker Wissing’s record investment in the railways.

Interestingly, there may be some long-overdue structural reform to Deutsche Bahn, that gargantuan monster gobbling up billions in return for record delays – although the precise shape of this will be one of the things up for discussion. And in a ‘What could possibly go wrong…?’-policy move (the disastrous results of which I will probably be writing a column a few years hence), the public body which owns the autobahns will be able to take on off-the-books debt…

One area about which little has thus far become known – and about which negotiations will befraught – is social spending. While the de-facto-bonfire of the debt brake does open up considerable fiscal wiggle room, the parties are well aware that a bonanza of increased benefits and pensions would look bad. Bad enough for debt ratings agencies to start getting anxious. So they’ll only blow some of it: but on whom?

The CSU would like uprated retirement pay-outs for women who had children during their working lives, adding billions to an already skyrocketing pensions bill – billions they hope to pinch from the welfare budget. The SPD, however, is dead set against any cuts to Bürgergeld. And the CDU doesn’t care about either particularly, so will simply aim to keep the purse-strings tight. At this point, it’s hard to tell what the final compromise will be, but the feathers are likely to fly first.

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Tenancy and home ownership

Another debate will be on whether rent controls remain in place. They’re scheduled to end this year, and the SPD would like them extended; but the CDU and CSU are more wary. Why? After all, making people’s rent shoot up is a sure-fire way to get bad press from day one. Partly, it’s because many right-of-centre voters are owner-occupiers.

There is, however, a bona-fide constitutional issue, too: rent controls have to be time-limited; anything else would be read as an illegal attempt to devalue of
landlords’ legitimately acquired assets. So another ‘temporary’ extension is being mooted because an indefinite one would incur the wrath of Karlsruhe. The question will be: for how long?

For home-owners, meanwhile, it is looking like the coalition agreement will contain compulsory insurance against storm and flood damage, known as an Elementarschadensversicherung. As the Ahrtal floods in 2021 revealed, many property-owners in areas of the country at risk from increasingly extreme weather patterns are not adequately insured.

Ironically, however, the agreement is likely to contain little by way of climate policy: at best, the current plans for the green energy transition and the controversial heating-replacement legislation (Heizungsgesetz) will be ‘reformed’ (i.e. made laxer); at worst, the Greens’ absence will become noticeable as the SPD lets the CDU-CSU gut carbon-neutral plans for electoral gain.

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Other policy areas

Elsewhere, there are several potential bones of contention in the negotiations. All the parties, for instance, agree that some form of military service will be necessary to stop our army from imploding.

However, the SPD think they can do it the nice way (sending 18-year-olds letters asking them to sign up), while the CDU-CSU want to reintroduce conscription using the legal powers made dormant (but not abolished) in 2011. Have kids? Watch this space to find out whether they’ll get pressed into service!

For us journalists, meanwhile – and so for you readers – there is another potential field of conflict in freedom of information legislation. Currently, FOI requests are the only legal recourse journalists have to procure official documents at federal level, and the CDU, especially everyone’s favourite young fogey Philipp Amthor, would like nothing more than to get rid of them.

Hardly surprising, either: it was FOIs which revealed that several CDU-CSU MPs had been involved in dodgy mask deals during the Pandemic – and which got Amthor himself caught in a cash-for-questions scandal. We can only hope the SPD resists the temptation to help silence us pesky reporters here.

One utterly deafening silence, by the way, has been on the subject of cannabis legalisation. When it was introduced, the CSU culture warriors went ballistic, vowing to repeal it the moment they got back into office.

Thus far, however, everyone’s been keeping schtum about it – perhaps because those involved in these long coalition negotiations have come to appreciate the thought-stimulating, contemplative qualities and convivial delight of a good reefer…?

Maybe that’s why it’s so quiet in there. Wait, can you hear… giggling?

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