Approval by center-left party sets the stage for Merz to become chancellor in Germany

BERLIN – Germany’s Social Democrats, a center-left party, have given the green light to join a new coalition government. This decision sets the stage for conservative leader Friedrich Merz to be elected as the country’s new chancellor.

The outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholtz’s party will form part of a coalition led by Friedrich Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union. These parties emerged victorious in Germany’s February election with 28.5% of the vote.

Despite suffering their poorest election outcome since World War II, with only 16.4% of the votes, the Social Democrats will still play a crucial role in supporting the conservatives to secure a parliamentary majority, thereby avoiding the need to involve the far-right Alternative for Germany, which came in second place in the election.

The Social Democrats put a coalition agreement reached in early April to an online ballot of their 358,000-plus members, who voted over the last two weeks. The party announced Wednesday that 56% of their members voted in the poll, of which 84.6% cast their ballots in favor.

The deal gives the Social Democrats the crucial finance, justice and defense ministries, among others. The CDU and CSU previously approved the agreement.

The lower house of the German parliament will meet on May 6 to elect Merz as the country’s 10th leader since World War II.

The coalition aims to spur economic growth, ramp up defense spending, take a tougher approach to migration and catch up on long-neglected modernization for the 27-nation European Union’s most populous member. Germany has the continent’s biggest economy.

The coalition has a relatively modest majority, with 328 of the Bundestag’s 630 seats.

The Union and Social Democrats have governed Germany together before: once in the 1960s, and then in three of the four terms of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who led the country from 2005 to 2021.