SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has called on the traffic light government to unite in the current crisis situation.

"What I expect from all ministers is that we stop arguing with each other," he told the Bayern media group on Thursday.

"We have to work together to ensure that nobody is thrown out of their apartment because of rising energy costs or that families no longer know how to afford the weekly shop." He could only urgently appeal to everyone to concentrate on it, "because the traffic light is measured against it”.

In the course of the debates about the impending gas shortage and high inflation, there were repeated disputes within the red-green-yellow coalition - for example over the question of whether the remaining German nuclear power plants should run longer than previously planned.

Scholz faces the capital media

"The government's ongoing stress test will show whether we need the three nuclear reactors a little longer and therefore have to go into stretching operation," said Klingbeil.

“We should clarify these energy policy issues pragmatically and not ideologically.

But I am clearly against a general return to expensive and dangerous nuclear energy.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) answered questions from the capital's media at the end of the political summer break in the morning.

At the appearance before the federal press conference, the Chancellor wants to comment on current domestic and foreign policy issues.

In terms of foreign policy, the Russian war in Ukraine and its consequences are likely to dominate the round of questions.

Domestically, the debate about further relief for citizens is likely to play a role;

there are unresolved conflicts in the traffic light coalition.

It is to be expected that the investigations into the cum-ex scandal surrounding the Hamburg private bank Warburg will also be discussed at the press conference.

After media reports about a large find of cash from a former Hamburg SPD politician, the opposition demanded clarification from Scholz.