BERLIN: Germany’s would-be coalition partners reached agreement on a law to attract qualified labour to Germany, German media reported on Tuesday, citing a paper from a working group in the exploratory talks between the parties.
Immigration is one of the most sensitive topics in the talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats.
The agreement on that topic, following compromises on tax and carbon emissions policy achieved on Monday, suggested the parties are inching closer to a decision to open formal coalition talks.Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and their prospective centre-left partners in government faced criticism over their reported willingness to push back Germany’s target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.
Merkel’s Union bloc and the centre-left Social Democrats are holding preliminary talks this week on extending their coalition of the past four years. Conservative negotiator Armin Laschet told a business group on Monday they had wrapped up talks on energy policy, but gave no details.
German news agency dpa reported that the agreement involves officially giving up the country’s target of a 40 per cent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 compared with 1990, regarded by many as unachievable, but taking measures to close the gap as far as possible.
The Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland newspaper group reported that the new aim would be to reach the target “at the beginning of the 2020s.”
Merkel, who pledged before September’s election to stick to the 2020 target, has been dubbed the “Climate Chancellor” for her ambitious aims for renewable energy, but Germany still gets about 40 percent of its electricity from coal-fired plants.
Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2018
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