(Bloomberg) -- German conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz rowed back on recent sharp criticism of the Greens as he seeks to keep his options open for coalition partners if his CDU/CSU alliance wins February’s snap election.
Opinion polls give the CDU and its Bavarian CSU sister party a big lead over the far-right Alternative for Germany in second place, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats in third and the Greens, who are part of the current ruling coalition with the SPD, in fourth.
As the conservatives have ruled out partnering with the AfD, a coalition with either — or both — the SPD and Greens would be their only realistic path to a parliamentary majority.
In September, Merz said that no party “triggers such aversion with our voters and our members as the Greens” and attacked what he called their “constant patronizing,” “wild urge for regulation” and “hostility to technology.”
In an interview with Bild published Tuesday, Merz was significantly less critical, telling the newspaper that “in foreign and security policy, there is certainly more common ground with the Greens than with the SPD.”
“We are fighting for every vote,” the paper quoted Merz as saying. At the same time, he said the CDU/CSU has a “completely different” economic policy which would require “a fundamental change of course.”
Merz is running for chancellor on a pro-business agenda of lower taxes, less regulation and limited welfare spending.
By contrast, the Greens want a strong state willing to spend enough to support households and companies and subsidize the transition to a carbon neutral economy.
Scholz raised the stakes at the weekend by proposing a loosening of Germany’s strict borrowing limits and an investment fund worth at least €100 billion ($106 billion) to help pay for the country’s modernization.
Franziska Brantner, a co-leader of the Greens, appeared to make an overture to the conservatives at the weekend when she told Bild that Merz was a more reliable partner than Scholz and the Social Democrats on support for Ukraine.
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