Clock ticking on chancellor’s tenure as successor waits in the wings.
With a number of important elections on the horizon in the coming months — the European Parliament vote and a regional state ballot in Bremen late May, followed by a string of regional polls in eastern Germany in the fall — Berlin’s political strategists are already preparing for what comes next. Many predict a new general election in the medium term.
A loss of Brandenburg, where the SPD is polling neck-and-neck with the CDU and the far-right Alternative for Germany , could also trigger the federal government’s collapse. The party also wants to improve unemployment benefits, doing away with the so-called Hartz IV regulations, a set of controversial labor market reforms introduced under SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2005.
In their coalition agreement, the parties agreed to maintain Germany’s balanced budget, a goal that would likely be jeopardized by the SPD’s latest proposals. Though Germany has run a budget surplus in recent years amid robust economic growth and tax revenue, economists caution that those days are likely to end soon.
The more time passes, the more difficult it could become for Kramp-Karrenbauer, as she learned the hard way this week.
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