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Possible traffic light partners Baerbock, Lindner, Scholz
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CLEMENS BILAN / POOL / EPA
Probably this week the SPD, Greens and FDP want to decide whether they want to start formal coalition negotiations after the exploratory talks are over.
According to a SPIEGEL survey, the majority of Germans would welcome the next step in forming a government - they assume that a traffic light coalition would move the country forward.
In the survey by the opinion research institute Civey for SPIEGEL, 53 percent said that a traffic light coalition led by SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz would be good for Germany.
32 percent voted for “yes, definitely” and 20 percent for “more or less yes”.
37 percent do not believe that the traffic lights would do Germany any good, 14 percent of them said »probably no« and 24 percent said »no, definitely not«.
You can read the background to the Civey method here.
The greatest approval comes from the ranks of the SPD and Greens sympathizers.
Perhaps intoxicated by the election victory, 97 percent of the SPD supporters would welcome the Scholz traffic light, in the Green camp the enthusiasm is only slightly more subdued.
The situation is different with the potential FDP voters - they are much more critical of a traffic light coalition. According to this, 50 percent believe that the coalition would "probably not" or "by no means" be good for Germany, 18 percent were undecided. Only about a third would support an alliance with the SPD and the Greens. This is the lowest value after the supporters of Union and AfD with nine percent approval each - only these two parties are not sitting at the exploratory table.
The FDP negotiators are well aware of the traffic light reservations among the supporters.
This was also evident at the joint press conference on the explorations: SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil and Michael Kellner, the Federal Managing Director of the Greens, expressed their confidence that the three parties could find common ground.
By contrast, Volker Wissing, General Secretary of the FDP, found more cautious words.
Wissing praised the atmosphere for discussion, but made it clear that it was something different to have "polite and objective" conversations than to put solutions on paper.
Two and a half weeks after the general election, there is little movement on the Sunday issue compared to the previous week.
The SPD lost two percentage points, but with 26 percent is still at the level of their election results.
The CDU is at 20 percent, the FDP and the Greens are jockeying for third place.
Left and AfD stagnate at six and eleven percent.
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