Kretschmer in favor of deviations from coalition agreement at federal level

Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer has backed the statements made by the head of the Chancellery, Thorsten Frei (both CDU), on deviating from the coalition agreement between the CDU and SPD in the federal government. Frei was expressing a matter of course, Kretschmer told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers. "The changes around us are taking place at breakneck speed. The current coalition agreement could not take all eventualities into account."

Kretschmer therefore sees economic growth as a priority. Production costs must fall and productivity must increase, he said. "A welfare state only works with economic growth."

Frei: "Act more flexibly"

In view of the difficult economic situation, Frei had advocated not sticking closely to the coalition agreement. The head of the Chancellery told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), when asked whether the coalition government should not rewrite the agreement, that the coalition had already put some framework conditions in place.

The coalition government of the SPD, Greens and FDP had "stoically stuck to" its coalition agreement despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Frei said and warned: "We should learn from this and act more flexibly. This may also mean taking stronger countermeasures in the difficult economic situation."