Energy and climate policy not cause for German coalition talk end - politicians

Disagreements over energy and climate policy were not the ultimate reasons for the collapse of coalition talks to form a new government, representatives of three of the parties involved said at the annual congress of the German Energy Agency (dena) in Berlin. “We have discussed a lot, energy and climate have been problematic,” said Green member of parliament (MP) Oliver Krischer, who had been part of the party’s negotiation team. “But we had reached a point where there was a lot of movement.” Christian Democratic (CDU) MP Joachim Pfeiffer said that he had the impression that questions around individual issues had not been at the core of the pro-business FDP’s decision to pull out. “It was about psychology and also about a lack of will to reach an agreement.” Free Democrat (FDP) Henner Schmidt, who is a member of the regional parliament of the federal state of Berlin, agreed: “It did not fail because of that (energy and climate policy).” The general atmosphere and the overall setting seemed to have been more of an issue, said Schmidt, who was not part of the FDP’s negotiation team. 

Read the full CLEW article German coalition talks collapse as pro-business FDP pulls plug and the CLEW factsheet First reactions to collapse of German coalition talks for more information.