A leading centre-left figure in the government of Angela Merkel resigned on Tuesday, depriving the German leader of one of the linchpins of her fractious grand coalition.
Franz Münterfering, a Social Democrat, stepped down as labour minister and vice-chancellor in what amounts to a heavy blow for Merkel’s efforts to keep the government intact for its full four-year term.
Münterfering, who cited personal reasons for his resignation, is the first figure to step down from the two-year old coalition of Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats (SPD) of Kurt Beck.
But while SPD colleagues said his decision had been motivated by a family illness, it came just hours after a tense, marathon Cabinet session that exposed the deep divisions running through Merkel’s left-right coalition.
Münterfering was unhappy at attempts by his party to roll back some of the liberal economic reforms introduced between 2003 and 2004 under the government of the previous chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Münterfering, a self-proclaimed Schröderite, was also said to have been increasingly frustrated by Merkel’s lack of willingness to back him on this and other issues, such as pushing through a minimum wage.
Although credited with succeeding in her quests to raise taxes and increase the retirement age, Merkel has recently been accused of kow-towing to the left in order to win votes from the middle-ground.
Wedenesday’s Cabinet talks led to a decision to expand the framework of unemployment benefits, a move pushed for by Beck and which is expected to cost around â,¬2,5-billion, a figure that experts say Germany can ill-afford if it wants to keep its newly-buoyant economy healthy.
Beck, who is also leader of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, is seen as the likeliest contender to Merkel at the next elections due in 2009.
Described as a ”cornerstone of the coalition”, Münterfering, who has said he wants to stay on as an MP for now, is widely thought to have drawn the political consequences of his failure to stop the watering down of the Schröder-era reforms.
He is to be replaced as vice-chancellor by the pro-reform Social Democrat foreign minister Franz-Walter Steinmeier (51) and as Labour Minister by Olaf Scholz, the SPD’s parliamentary floor manager. – Guardian Unlimited Â