BONN – Gerhard Schroeder has decided: for the new government the SPD will conduct negotiations only with the Green party. The confirmation was given today in Bonn, where there was also talk of the start of the work, which will start next Friday with the first consultations. The commission in charge of the negotiations, which will be conducted “quickly”, said Schroeder, will be constituted by the presidium of the party, with President Oskar Lafontaine at the head. The Social Democratic leader also announced that there is no negotiation with the CDU of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Schroeder had already made clear the road he would undertake in the aftermath of the crushing victory in German political elections. The final results give a possible “red-green” government a majority to the Bundestag of 21 votes: more than enough, says the candidate to replace Helmut Kohl. Provided the pacts are clear.

In an interview with the Zdf public television, Schroeder was very clear: “Twenty-one seats are a sufficient majority,” he said, and then added: “We need a coalition agreement that binds each partner without ‘if’, ‘e’ or ‘but’ “. An obvious allusion to the distinctions that the Greens might try to do in fields such as nuclear energy or the defense policy that sees them on different positions from the Social Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Greens have officially announced their willingness to enter, even with compromises, the government of the Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, to bring to Germany that “fresh wind” that voters have shown to wait with yesterday’s vote. During a press conference that preceded the official offer of talks by the SPD, which came late this morning, the ecologist summits announced the establishment of a commission charged with negotiating with the SPD in view of a legislative agreement.

The charismatic leader Joschka Fischer said that “compromises” will be needed and ensured that his party, pacifist by vocation, is for continuity in foreign policy: “we will work in close cooperation with the partners”, he said, “not against their”. With Fischer there were the two presidential spokesmen, Gunda Roestel and Juergen Trittin, and the spokesperson of the parliamentary group Kerstin Mueller. All have indicated the number one priority in the fight against unemployment, and Mueller in enumerating the most urgent reforms (labor pact, nuclear exit and citizenship law) has ensured that ecologists will prove to be reliable partners.