MUNICH: The steering committee of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), is set to approve the new German coalition deal on Thursday.
Horst Seehofer, CSU chief and designated interior minister in the new government with the CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD), is to head the committee which is set to meet at 10 am (0900 GMT) in Munich.
Seehofer is expected to give a report on the mammoth negotiations – which stretched beyond a Sunday deadline into Wednesday – to hammer out the deal to revive the so-called grand coalition that has governed Germany since 2013.
The committee is expected to rubber-stamp the deal. The party will not vote on the deal in a special conference as the CDU is scheduled to do in Berlin on February 26 or ask its members to vote on the deal, as the SPD is scheduled to do from February 20 until the first weekend of March in a postal ballot.
Seehofer said on Wednesday he was pleased with the deal, especially as he had managed to secure a now expanded Interior Ministry, giving the CSU control over immigration, an area on which he has clashed with Merkel. He also claims tax cuts as a CSU success.
The CSU retains the Transport and Digital Infrastructure and Development ministries.
