Bonn - Germany's Green party tried yesterday to make the Social Democrats give ground over banning nuclear power in talks on forming a new coalition government.
While the negotiations resumed for a fourth round yesterday with a show of public unity, first signs emerged of internal divisions within Chancellor-elect, Mr Gerhard Schroder's SPD. The nuclear issue is central to the small Green party and of symbolic importance after they reportedly gave in to the SPD over a so-called ecological tax reform.
The two parties sat down again in the afternoon on a joint programme for a "red-Green" government, dealing this time with the fine print of a general tax agreement hammered out last week, and with nuclear power and the environment.
"We will remain tough and we won't yield," Ms Kerstin Muller, the Greens' co-leader in parliament, said. The Greens want an end to nuclear power within eight years while the SPD say 20-30 years is more realistic.