Where Germany’s Europe policy stil • Table.Briefings

The EU partners have a hard time understanding how the German government coalition formulates its European policy positions. In fact, coordination within the federal government is far from smooth – despite good intentions and several rounds of coordination.

Love triangles are complicated, especially when the partners have very different personalities. Accordingly, there have been frequent clashes in the governing German „traffic light coalition“, including on European policy issues. Most recently, the SPD, the Greens and the FDP could not agree on a joint position on the pay transparency directive, which would require companies to disclose data on the pay gap between men and women in the future. Germany abstained in the Council shortly before Christmas.

Where Germany’s Europe policy still hitches

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