Overview
- The Koalitionsausschuss met for roughly four hours on Wednesday and closed without immediate announcements; coalition sources said results will be provided in writing the following morning.
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz pressed for renewed commitment to the July reform package and said the coalition agreement remains the work’s basis while warning full implementation is more likely by next spring than by Christmas.
- The package, agreed in July, sets changes for pensions, long‑term care, the labour market and taxes and parliamentary leaders who met in Münster had aimed to pass it through the Bundestag by year‑end.
- Leaders discussed the political fallout from recent state votes, including a secret ballot that elected an AfD politician as Saxony‑Anhalt’s Landtag president and Union concern about possible SPD cooperation with Die Linke in Berlin.
- Coalition circles are favouring careful, written communication as they revise the legislative timetable, meaning citizens should expect a short delay in concrete legal changes to benefits, care funding and labour rules.