German parties signal willingness to compromise over "Jamaica" negotiations

Representatives of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU), Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Greens (Gruene) have signaled their willingness to compromise on Monday to overcome the current impasse in official "Jamaica" coalition negotiations.

CDU leader Angela Merkel, CSU leader Horst Seehofer, Greens leaders Katrin Goering-Eckardt and Cem Oezdemir, as well as FDP leader Christian Lindner and his Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki are all scheduled to meet on Monday evening in a bid to overcome remaining disagreement on key policy issues such as climate change and migration.

Jamaica coalition is a term in German politics describing a coalition government among the parties of the CDU/CSU bloc, Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Green.

The term refers to an association between the symbolic colors of the parties -- black for the CDU/CSU bloc, yellow for the business-friendly FDP, and green for Green Party -- and the colors of the national flag of Jamaica.

Having only made little progress since national elections in September, the "Jamaica" parties are anxious to jumpstart political talks in order to achieve some first concrete results on the path to the formation of Germany's next government this month.

Speaking in the "Passauer Neue Presse" (PNP), Greens faction leader Anton Hofreiter said that his party was willing to make concessions in the controversial field of climate policy. So far, the Greens have driven a hard line with regards to energy and environmental affairs, insisting on a binding national exit from coal power.

While Hofreiter continued to demand the 20 most polluting coal power plants in Germany should be taken off the grid, the Greens politician was also open to other strategies to meet national climate goals such as "stricter CO2 limits".

Hofreiter's comments came after FDP leader Christian Lindner had publicly cast doubt over whether Green energy policy was "physically implementable" over the weekend. On Monday, Katja Suding, Vice President of the FDP parliamentary faction, further raised the possibility of postponing the date by which Germany has to meet its national climate objectives to 2050.

With regards to migration policy, Daniel Guenther (CDU) said that his party was willing to give ground on the subject of refugees' right to family-reunification. However, CSU Vice President Christian Schmidt reiterated in the PNP that the CDU's conservative sister party would not move an inch closer to the more liberal position adopted by the Greens.

So far, discussions between the prospective "Jamaica" coalition partners on 12 separate policy areas have only resulted in a superficial assessment of their topical differences and agreements.

A poll published on Monday by the public broadcaster "RTL" found that failure to reach a consensus in negotiations and subsequent re-elections would only marginally alter the outcome of elections on September 24. As a consequence, Germany's political system would still be left in its current state of gridlock.