The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, denied yesterday that his governing coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens was on the verge of collapse just four months after taking office. In the wake of the coalition's surprise defeat in a state election in Hesse last Sunday, a newspaper claimed yesterday that the chancellor's Social Democrats have entered secret talks with the Liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
"I've already got a coalition and, all in all, I am quite satisfied with it. And I have no plans to change," Mr Schroder said during a visit to the Daimler Chrysler headquarters in Stuttgart.
Tensions within the government have been mounting this week as Social Democrats blamed the Greens for allowing the conservative opposition to take control of Hesse, depriving the coalition of its majority in the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat. For their part, the Greens were angered by Mr Schroder's haste in abandoning a planned change in Germany's citizenship law following Sunday's election result.
The chancellor disappointed his coalition partners last month by retreating from a proposal to outlaw the reprocessing of nuclear waste by the end of the year.
But some of Mr Schroder's colleagues within the SPD are also unhappy with the chancellor's leadership style and with his practice of announcing policy changes to the media before consulting his cabinet. The Finance Minister, Mr Oskar Lafontaine, was described by colleagues this week as "livid" with the chancellor over his failure to consult colleagues.
Mr Lafontaine insisted yesterday there were no personal problems between Mr Schroder and himself but he acknowledged there were tensions within the government. "There have been co-ordination problems," he said.
Mr Lafontaine, who is chairman of the SPD, first learned of Mr Schroder's retreat on nuclear power from a newspaper report and was sidelined again this week when the chancellor announced changes to a planned tax reform.
But the Finance Minister reassured left-wing Social Democrats this week that he will soon assert his authority.
Mr Lafontaine fired a warning shot yesterday in an interview with the mass-circulation Bild newspaper when he ruled out abandoning the Greens in favour of the more business-friendly FDP. "The FDP want the rich to get richer and the poor poorer. The vast majority of Germans don't want that," he said.
The FDP has agreed to co-operate with the government on a new reform of the citizenship law which would allow German-born children of foreigners to retain two passports until the age of 23. But Greens and left-wing Social Democrats complain the government's retreat from its original proposal was not only wrong but unnecessary.
The opposition CDU made immigration an issue in the Hesse election campaign by launching a petition against the introduction of dual citizenship which has already attracted more than a million signatures. Mr Schroder is eager to deprive the opposition of a popular campaigning issue by finding a compromise that most Germans will support.
But the chancellor's left-wing critics point out that Dr Helmut Kohl refused to back down on the siting of medium-range nuclear missiles in Germany during the 1980s, even after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest. Left-wingers want Mr Schroder to emulate his predecessor's assertiveness instead of changing policies each time an interest group complains.
The government's internal troubles come as unemployment continues to rise and the powerful metal workers' union, IG Metall, is threatening a national strike in support of a pay claim. Mr Lafontaine called yesterday for the coalition partners to work more closely together to achieve the government's aims and to solve disputes behind closed doors.