A massive campaign of the CDU and the federal headquarters of the SPD and Greens, backed by mainstream press coverage, to prevent a new government for the city-state of Berlin led by Die Linke, the winner of the election, has failed: The Berlin state sections of Greens and Social Democrats have insisted on their autonomy and defied arm-twisting attempts by their national party executives and agreed to begin coalition talks with Die Linke.

Upset at this development, delegates at the Junge Union’s “Germany Day” (young CDU members’ convention) yesterday passed a resolution calling for a Linke-governed Berlin to be excluded from receiving information from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Criminal Police Office. This is mirroring similar proposals made to deny an AfD-led government in the state of Lower Saxony information.