The SPD has core disagreements with him in those areas — and little incentive to budge now that Merz has already given them their big wish on borrowing. For Merz, the other key problem is that due to the increasing power of radical parties on both sides of the political spectrum, he has no other viable coalition choice, since he has ruled out governing with the AfD.
That means he’s stuck with the SPD, whose leaders are keen to use that fact to their advantage, vowing to protecting social benefits and their core labor supporters.
“I want to make one thing clear,” Lars Klingbeil, one of the SPD’s chief negotiators, said last week. “Anyone who says state modernization but actually means dismantling employee rights is firstly making a mistake and secondly has the Social Democrats very clearly against him.”
What is emerging as an even bigger point of contention, however, is an issue that dominated the election campaign: migration.
Merz, in the weeks before the election, sounded increasingly tough on migration in order to win back voters who had moved to the AfD. The front-runner promised to introduce strict border controls on his first day in office and to reject all irregular entries, including asylum seekers.
The SPD argues that would violate EU law, anger neighboring countries and undermine European solidarity at a time when Germany needs the bloc to confront U.S. President Donald Trump on tariffs. Many in the SPD are also against a proposal to revoke German citizenship for people with a second nationality if they are found to hold extremist or antisemitic views, arguing the policy unfairly targets dual citizens. Philipp Türmer, the chairman of the SPD youth organization, referred to the proposal as an “absolute deal-breaker.”