Crumbling ‘House of Lars' threatens Germany‘s coalition stability

Euractiv

6 days ago

BERLIN – The red bricks in the foundation of Germany's governing coalition are showing cracks.
The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), Chancellor Friedrich Merz's junior coalition partner, have emerged ailing and damaged after a fractious party conference over the weekend.
At the heart of the drama lies the leadership of Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, who got a stern rebuke from delegates. Klingbeil was re-elected as chair – but with just 64.1% of the vote among delegates, despite running uncontested.
That was a historically bad showing, which raised doubts about Klingbeil's ability to keep the party on board with the pragmatist coalition deal he struck with Merz's Christian Democrats, just as he is facing the crucial test of passing his first budget.
The centrist coalition enjoys little margin for error in parliament, with just 13 MPs more than a bare majority. Its shakiness was on display early on when Merz was rejected for the chancellorship on the first ballot.
Growing discontent among SPD backbenchers could make it difficult to deliver majorities on contentious issues, as some coalition officials have previously told Euractiv that the coalition has to put extra attention on rallying support for key parliamentary votes. Failing upwards
Klingbeil acknowledged after Friday's SPD leadership vote that he had "got it in the neck' in what was the most significant blow to his leadership and possibly a comeuppance for an audacious power grab.
He had become the party's undisputed frontman after the German elections in February, when the SPD went down with its worst national election result more than 150 years – despite being then dubbed 'the architect of failure'. His rise is reportedly jokingly referred to as the "House of Lars" by some within the party, referencing the television show about a Machiavellian politician in pursuit of power.
Then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz took the brunt of the blame, while Klingbeil grabbed the SPD's parliamentary leadership post on election night. Instead of stepping down as party co-chair, he went on to sideline rivals and seize control of the coalition negotiations, where he secured top posts as finance minister and vice-chancellor for himself.
Along the way, he purged a number of prominent figures, particularly from the party's left wing.
Among those forced aside were Klingbeil's unpopular former co-chair Saskia Esken, ex-parliamentary leader Rolf Mützenich, and a pair of prominent SPD ministers from the Scholz government, Hubertus Heil and Svenja Schulze. A party divided
That is bound to have left plenty in the party bitter at being shoved aside – with ideological objections to the new course Klingbeil is charting also playing a role.
Klingbeil, along with Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, represents a marked shift toward the centre for the party – and a sidelining of the party's left wing.
Pistorius has championed German rearmament and strongly backed further military support for Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.
The SPD was once known for supporting rapprochement with Russia, and some older MPs still support that view. There also remains a strong pacifist contingent on the party's left, and the party's youth wing managed to pass a motion opposing mandatory military service, something Pistorius wants to bring back.
A group of over 100 party affiliates put out a policy paper just two weeks before the conference, sharply criticising higher defence spending as "irrational" and calling for Germany to "re-enter a dialogue" with Moscow. Signers included newly outcast Mützenich.
Klingbeil has also stretched the tolerance of some in the left's rank-and-file by tacitly accepting Merz's tougher migration policy, which includes controversial unilateral border controls. A fractious coalition partner?
The SPD is no stranger to compromise and pragmatism. After all, the party has been part of Germany's governing coalition nearly uninterruptedly since 1998.
Experts, however, believe that the vote indicates that Klingbeil is still facing a significant challenge.
Benjamin Höhne, a political scientist at the Chemnitz University of Technology, said that Merz's Christian Democrats 'will surely view the reliability of the SPD with some trepidation after this party conference'.
The vote showed that 'this party is not as controllable as it sometimes was in the past,' Wolfgang Schroeder, a political scientist at the Berlin Social Science Center research institute, told broadcaster n-tv .
This comes as Klingbeil soon faces another key test in passing his first budget as finance minister. The budget contains record debt, mostly earmarked for bringing Germany's defence spending to 3.5% of GDP.
Höhne believes that a significant part of the frustration at the SPD conference was directed at Klingbeil's ruthless power grab, that would not be front and centre during the budget vote.
But the conference vote was 'a sign that Klingbeil needs to talk more with all wings of the party and cannot simply dictate his course top down', he said.
(bts, jp)