Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) is skeptical whether the necessary progress in climate protection policy can be achieved for his party in a traffic light coalition under Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).

“In the negotiations on the CO2 price, Scholz was the toughest opponent.

He'll have to take that off.

We need more climate protection and a faster exit from the coal industry.

The mouse won't bite off a thread, ”he said on Tuesday in Stuttgart.

Within the Green Party, Kretschmann is one of the few supporters of a Jamaica coalition with the CDU and FDP.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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He admitted, however, that in view of the clear election result and the SPD's lead of 1.6 percentage points, there is currently “a pre” for the traffic light. According to a post-election survey by the Forsa Institute on behalf of RTL, 92 percent of the green voters want a traffic light coalition, which also reflects the mood in the party. Kretschmann said: "You don't make political decisions about temporary moods, you can see from the mood for Annalena Baerbock months ago and now shortly before the election, how fluctuating such moods can be." One could not agree on feelings in education of a government alliance, “reasons of reason” would have to be decisive.

After the state elections in March, Kretschmann decided against resistance in his party in favor of the new edition of the green-black coalition. When asked what his relationship with Olaf Scholz was, Kretschmann said: "My personal relationship is professional." usually as “good” or “very good”. Although he was part of the “caution team” in the Corona policy, he had never publicly criticized Armin Laschet's much more relaxed pandemic policy in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In addition to Kretschmann's fundamental skepticism towards classic social democratic views, there is also a negative experience that he made with Scholz during the negotiations on higher CO2 prices at the end of 2019.

Scholz is said to have ostentatiously thrown a piece of paper that Kretschmann presented together with the Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter.

In addition, from the point of view of Kretschmann, who would have preferred Robert Habeck as a candidate for chancellor, coalitions with the CDU are better suited to lead his own party permanently into the political center.