Merkel gathers bickering ministers to knuckle down to business

Merkel gathers bickering ministers to knuckle down to business

By Paul Carrel

FILE PHOTO - German Chancellor Angela Merkel leads her cabinet meeting in Berlin, Germany March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel will need to draw on all her experience to forge some team spirit among her new cabinet at a two-day retreat starting on Tuesday, with ministers already squabbling after just a month in office.

Simmering antipathy between the coalition partners - Merkel's conservatives and the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD) - boiled over at the weekend in a row over law and order, ending any honeymoon period for the awkward allies.

The two groups only agreed to team up to prolong their "grand coalition" - in power since 2013 - because they were desperate to avoid fresh elections, after they both haemorrhaged support in last September's national poll.

They have achieved little since taking office last month. Merkel will use the meeting at Schloss Meseberg, her country residence outside Berlin, to try to end the cabinet bickering and launch a flood of reforms before the summer break.

"I now expect a list of priorities: what should happen this year, what next year," said Andrea Nahles, who is expected to take over as SPD leader later this month. "The chancellor's most important task is to get government business up and running."

Nahles has chosen to stay outside the cabinet, instead opting to lead the SPD parliamentary group - a role that allows her both to press the government to pass reforms important to her party members and to criticise the conservatives.

The pressure is on for both camps to deliver. Their coalition deal includes a clause that foresees reviewing government progress after two years - giving each the opportunity to leave the alliance if it is not working for them.

An Infratest Dimap poll for ARD published on Thursday showed just 32 percent of respondents were happy with the government.

The government situation is complicated by a regional election in Bavaria in October, at which Merkel's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), fears losing its absolute majority if the far right makes gains.

Aiming to see off the rising far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), CSU Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said last month Islam does not belong to Germany - a comment that infuriated the SPD.

Coalition sources say the art of governing in the coalition will be to find a happy medium between substantive policy work and party political skirmishes that allow the camps to differentiate themselves from each other.

With over six months gone since September's election, Merkel is keenly aware that voters expect the government to address their economic, social and security concerns quickly. In the past, she has used cabinet retreats as team-building exercises.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker are invited to Tuesday's meeting - a way of Merkel signalling to her cabinet the importance of the biggest European Union country having a stable government.

(Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke, editing by Larry King)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-04-10