It had something of a group therapy that SPD and CDU have been doing over the past few days. The Social Democrats have said goodbye to Hartz IV and so tried to overcome a trauma that has burdened the party for a decade and a half.
And the CDU has not thrown everything overboard, which Chancellor Angela Merkel, until December also party leader, since late summer 2015 had to answer migration policy. But after the so-called workshop talk, which sometimes came across optically as a political chair circle, the will is clear: more rigor in the asylum and refugee policy.
So SPD and CDU sharpened their profile. The comrades have moved to the left, the CDU a bit to the right. But now the governing parties are catching up with everyday politics: on Wednesday evening, the coalition committee meets - for the first time since Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer replaced Chancellor Merkel as CDU chief.
And the question is: how will the Union and the SPD continue to work together if they are currently above all to differentiate themselves from their allies?
"We are not very excited"
The Social Democrats are left outward. The welfare state concept is "first of all a positioning of the SPD," said party leader Andrea Nahles. A break in the coalition was "zero issue" at the recent board meeting.
Kramp-Karrenbauer also emphasized that despite all criticism of the SPD proposals, they do not expect a premature end to the coalition. CSU National Group chief Alexander Dobrindt dismissed the coalition partner's pension plans on Tuesday, but insisted that the Alliance's governing capacity was in no way compromised: "We're not particularly excited."
In fact, the Union and the SPD had already made plans to form a government less than a year ago and mutually agreed to set their own course despite all the major coalitional compromises. It is "always expected and hoped that parties are recognizable with their positions," said Merkel, then still CDU chief, at the coalition meeting in Meseberg in April 2018.
This was especially important for the SPD, which was tormented only against strong resistance of the base in the government participation. The promise of the party leadership was: This time it works differently, this time we want to show in the coalition more "SPD pure". But even the top people of the Union guaranteed the GroKo skeptics in their ranks, one would be careful to implement less social democratic projects and more visible than parties with the C to stay.
All three party leaders do not belong to the government
More SPD, CDU and CSU pure: That should - on paper - now easier because now none of the party leaders is more part of the Federal Government: Kramp-Karrenbauer took over from Merkel, CSO Markus Söder by Horst Seehofer, Nahles was from the outset as SPD parliamentary leader.
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But in practice, things are different. Citizens are unlikely to make any difference between coalition and party matters. The danger that the government is again perceived as a quarrel is great.
On the other hand threatens just CDU and SPD their respective base to bounce, if they now in the government business to watering down too much of what they have worked on proposals for profiling.
This could be exemplified by the basic pension of Labor Minister Hubertus Heil. Although this is agreed in the coalition agreement - Heil's planned renunciation of a means test is far too much for the Union. The SPD sees no need to talk about the issue with the coalition committee because there is not even a bill.
In the SPD board meeting, Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz made clear on Sunday that he absolutely wants to continue the coalition. He supported every aspect of the welfare state concept, the Finance Minister said. But: It would take two to three years to convey it to people as credible SPD positioning.
In a nutshell: The SPD should continue the alliance with the Union until the regular next federal election in 2021. At Scholz that is recognizable connected with his ambitions on the top candidate, it says from the party executive.
The elections in May could change everything
But in the long term, you can hardly plan in the SPD at the moment. In further electoral defeats, the coalition, for whose continued pleading next to Scholz Nahles and a large part of the group, should be questioned again. If the SPD loses power in Bremen after 70 years at the end of May and lands behind the AfD in the European elections, the urge to leave the Alliance is likely to grow very large in the SPD.
At the moment, no one in the Union's top has any interest in breaking the coalition. But even here, if the upcoming elections go to hell, could create a very different dynamics.
For now, they want to try it free according to the motto: Everyone for themselves - and somehow together. How well this works, will show up on Wednesday evening at the coalition committee. It is planned that the three party leaders will then join the press together.
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