Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - Top representatives of the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU and the Greens have met for a first exploratory round for a possible black-green coalition. Both Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) and the state party leader of the Greens, Mona Neubaur, emphasized on Tuesday in Düsseldorf the goal of finding common answers to the essential state political questions.
Wüst said it was about "getting from an or to an and". Neubaur assured: "We are not here pro forma or for fun, but well prepared and full of seriousness, but also with the necessary confidence." The goal is to come to a "resilient paper" by the end of the week, so that a small party conference of the Greens on Sunday in Essen can decide whether coalition negotiations with the CDU should be started.
If there were a coalition agreement, it would be the first black-green alliance in NRW. The CDU also wants to decide on the opening of coalition negotiations in its extended state board in Düsseldorf on Sunday.
The CDU clearly won the election on May 15 with 35.7 percent. With 26.7 percent, the SPD slipped to its worst result in a state election in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Greens were able to almost triple their share of the vote compared to 2017 to 18.2 percent and ended up in third place.
The CDU and Greens would therefore have a comfortable majority in the new state parliament. A traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP would also be mathematically possible. However, this is considered rather unlikely.
