Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: SPD and Left want to introduce a new holiday

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SPD Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (left) and Simone Oldenburg, parliamentary group leader of the Left in the state parliament

Photo: Jens Büttner / dpa

After eight rounds of talks, the SPD and the Left in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have concluded their coalition negotiations. The negotiators, Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) and left parliamentary group leader Simone Oldenburg, spoke of fair and result-oriented discussions. The large blocks of content have been negotiated to the end, there are no more controversial points, said Schwesig. The distribution of the departments between the two parties should be discussed in the coming week.

The text of the contract should - after an editorial revision on the weekend - be presented to the public on Monday and sent to the party members.

Extraordinary party conferences of both parties are to discuss the draft on Saturday next week.

If it is approved, Schwesig wants to stand for re-election in the state parliament on November 15 and appoint her cabinet.

Since the coalition negotiations went faster than originally assumed, the formation of a government can be brought forward by a week.

The SPD and the Left put their political projects under the motto »# Aufbruch2030«:

• Among other things, they want to expand wind, solar and hydrogen energy, plant five million trees and renature moors for climate protection.

• Public contracts should only be awarded to companies that pay collective wages.

• Thousands of additional teachers are to be brought to schools in the northeastern state.

• In addition, the red-red coalition wants to lower the voting age to 16 years.

• And women's day on March 8th is to be declared a public holiday.

  Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has so far had fewer public holidays than other federal states, it was said to justify.

  March 8th is currently only a public holiday in Berlin.

The planned red-red coalition has a majority of 43 of the 79 seats in the Schwerin state parliament.

The SPD has 34 and the Left has nine Landtag seats.

AfD, CDU, Greens and FDP form the opposition.

The SPD emerged victorious from the state elections on September 26th.

It reached 39.6 percent, nine percentage points more than in 2016. AfD, CDU and Left lost votes, while the Greens and FDP returned to the state parliament after a long absence.

jso / AFP / dpa