Martin Schulz has said that the Social Democratic Party is not ready to join the coalition as talks to form the new government after the September 24 election breakdown.
The Social Democrats’ leader said on Monday his party won’t join the new government led by Angela Merkel’s union of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU). The politician stressed that the previous coalition that his party was signed up to has received the “red card.”
“In such a situation, the sovereign, that is the voters, must reassess what is going on,” Schulz said to reporters on Wednesday, adding that his party does “not fear” the new elections.
The statement comes after the talks on the formation of the coalition government that would include Merkel’s CDU/CSU, the Green Party and the FDP collapsed. The Free Democrats pulled out from the negotiations on Monday after four weeks of fruitless efforts to find a consensus between the parties. Disagreements over issues such as migration and climate change were reportedly behind the breakdown of the talks.