Six weeks after the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the CDU and the Greens cleared the way for the country’s first black-green government. Party conferences of the CDU in Bonn and the Greens in Bielefeld voted by a large majority on Saturday to accept the negotiated coalition agreement.

This means that there is practically nothing standing in the way of the re-election of Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU), who has so far been head of government in a black-yellow coalition, in the state parliament on Tuesday. Since the CDU and Greens have a comfortable majority of 115 of the 195 mandates, no surprises are to be expected in the five-party parliament in the secret ballot.

In Bonn, a large majority of Christian Democrats said yes to the 146-page coalition agreement in an open vote by show of hands. The party conference presidium counted 4 dissenting votes in the ranks of the approximately 580 delegates present.

In Bielefeld, too, the delegates of the Greens voted with a large majority for the “Future Treaty for North Rhine-Westphalia” – albeit after a much longer discussion lasting several hours. 216 of the delegates voted yes, 30 voted no, and there were 8 abstentions.

Wüst had negotiated the coalition agreement with the state leader of the Greens, Mona Neubaur, within three and a half weeks. The 44-year-old graduate teacher is to become Minister for Economics, Industry, Climate and Energy.

The Green Youth had previously recommended that their own party reject the contract. She misses binding measures for more social justice and climate protection.

Wüst and Neubaur presented the results last Thursday. In the next five years, NRW should become socially fairer, more ecological, more digital, more economically stronger, said Neubauer about the goals.

The signing of the coalition agreement is planned for Monday. On Wednesday, the complete new state cabinet is to be presented to the public and sworn in in the state parliament. The coalition agreement provides for eight ministries for the CDU and four for the Greens. The eco-party has already announced who it would like to send to the cabinet – the CDU is still guarding its personal secrets.

On May 15, the CDU emerged as the clear winner of the state elections in the most populous federal state with 35.7 percent. 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 behind the collapsed SPD (26.7). The Free Democrats had halved their election result to 5.9 percent. Black and yellow could therefore no longer govern.