Shortly before the CDU’s national party congress at the end of the week in Stuttgart, SPD politicians urged the coalition partner to abandon its rigid distancing from the Left Party.
Jochen Ott, the designated top candidate of the North‑Rhine‑Westphalian SPD, told “Der Spiegel” that the CDU would do well to reassess its relationship to Die Linke. He criticized the party’s incompatibility resolution that equates the AfD with the Left, calling it outdated and trivializing a party that the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz calls a right‑wing extremist suspect.
Sebastian Roloff, co‑chair of the Bavarian SPD and economic‑policy spokesperson for the SPD’s Bundestag group, demanded that the CDU engage in a sincere debate over the functioning of German democracy. He pointed out that without Die Linke, the Bundestag lacks a two‑thirds majority for constitutional amendments or the appointment of Federal Constitutional Court judges-questions that concern the democratic foundation rather than opposition politics. Roloff argued that the incompatibility resolution should be viewed as a party‑political relic that hinders democratic practice.
Philipp Türmer, leader of the SPD’s Young Left (Juso), said that a blanket refusal to cooperate with Die Linke is a mistake. He warned that it risks rendering the Union ineffective and, in the medium term, endangering democracy itself. Türmer stressed that it is time for the CDU to confront reality and end this ideological detour.
The CDU has so far categorically rejected “coalitions and similar forms of cooperation” with both Die Linke and the AfD. The corresponding incompatibility resolution was adopted at the Hamburg party conference in December 2018 and remains untouched.
Ott said the CDU weakens parliamentary action by blocking necessary two‑thirds majorities when it excludes cooperation with Die Linke, even as it relies on such cooperation in Thuringia to sustain a minority government. He urged the Union to resolve this contradiction.
Türmer added that unlike the AfD, Die Linke is a democratic party, and that underestimating democratic forces while right‑extremists grow shows a failure to grasp the situation. He argued that all democratic parties are needed in state parliaments and the Bundestag, and that clinging to spurious decisions for the sake of avoidance ultimately weakens the country.
Politics
