Giffey refuses to lead economy group in Berlin coalition talks with Linke and Greens

Giffey declines the working group

Franziska Giffey, the SPD's outgoing Berlin economy senator, has turned down an offer to join the planned coalition negotiations with the Left Party (Linke) and the Greens. She had been asked whether she would lead the economy working group (Arbeitsgruppe Wirtschaft), and she said no. The role would have required her not to speak against the alliance as a whole, which she said she could not do.

She announced the decision in an Instagram post on Thursday evening, 29 October, and gave her reason in one sentence:

“I did not make this decision lightly, but I have very fundamental points of criticism about this alliance.”

She then told the state party leadership that she is not available for coalition talks on a red-red-green government.

Unresolved disputes and her conditions

Giffey said she could not credibly represent the alliance as a lead negotiator. She listed several points she considers still open: how to handle antisemitism, the Left Party's relations with Islamist networks and organised crime, the treatment of 'terror supporters', and the question of socialisation (Vergesellschaftung). She also pointed to promises that, in her words, have no financial basis in the Berlin state budget. Until these questions are clearly settled, she said, she sees government cooperation very critically. The developments of Thursday had not eased her concerns either:

“They have grown even larger.”

The Spiegel report on Elif Eralp

The debate centres on a report by Der Spiegel about Elif Eralp, the Left Party's parliamentary group leader and lead candidate, who wants to become Berlin's governing mayor. According to the magazine, Eralp's office released an interview version but accidentally sent back internal notes meant only for her own team. In those notes she reportedly voiced concern for her family's safety, struck a question and its answer, and asked whether the entire interview could be cancelled. The struck passage concerned a Palestinian activist, whom the Verfassungsschutz places in the milieu of the PFLP and says advertises for that group in Germany.

Reactions and the electoral backdrop

In the CDU and within the SPD, the episode is read as a sign that Eralp could be vulnerable to blackmail (Erpressbarkeit), and critics warn against joining a coalition led by the Left Party. Giffey had also missed entry to the Abgeordnetenhaus, the Berlin state parliament. She narrowly lost her Rudow constituency to the CDU's Olaf Schenk, and the SPD had not secured her through its district list. In a Focus reader debate, the largest group of contributions, 33 per cent of the discussion, saw her refusal as a symptom of problems in the Berlin SPD and its coalition strategy, and some readers discussed a CDU, Green and SPD majority as an alternative.