Germany

German Rivals Reach Pact for Coalition Government

BERLIN — After five weeks of negotiations, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives reached an agreement on Wednesday with their Social Democratic rivals on a program for a new coalition government, with concessions to the left that pleased labor leaders and almost immediately drew criticism from business interests.
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The 185-page document calls for establishing a national minimum wage — a first for the country — as well as increased pensions for some recipients and early retirement eligibility for others. It would offer dual citizenship to Turks and other foreigners who are born and raised in Germany, and it promises a new law by next summer to revitalize plans for renewable energy.

More broadly, though, it reaffirms Germany’s current course in Europe, much criticized by southern Europeans as burdening them with austerity. And the plans for improving Germany’s ailing infrastructure seemed likely to fall far short of the extra 7 billion euros, or $9.5 billion, a year in spending that a commission of government experts said was needed.
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Germany’s important business lobby echoed fears expressed by the government’s Council of Economic Advisers this month that Ms. Merkel and her partners were moving away from the labor and welfare overhaul policies of the last Social Democratic chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. Those policies [sic] are widely seen as a foundation for the country’s success in overcoming the 2008 financial crisis and weathering the euro zone’s troubles since.
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