German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was reported yesterday to have threatened to quit in an effort to bring backbench rebels into line ahead of key parliamentary votes on his economic reform plans.
"If you don't want to follow me, then you can go and look for someone else," Schroeder was quoted by Bild newspaper as telling SPD leaders at a closed-door party meeting on Thursday.
Parliament's Bundestag lower house was due to vote yesterday on a health reform plan amid fears government rebels will refuse to support it and cast a shadow over Schroeder's bid to revive a stagnant economy.
The plan to cut health costs by billions of euros is sure to get parliamentary backing as the bill was agreed in advance between the center-left government and opposition conservatives.
But a handful of deputies in Schroeder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens object to the health bill, which will force patients to pay for treatment they have long taken for granted, and may force Schroeder to rely on opposition votes to pass his first reform hurdle.
Failure to muster its own majority in the 603-seat Bundestag would be a blow to the government at the start of parliamentary negotiations on Schroeder's so-called "Agenda 2010" package of reforms to tax, benefits, pensions and the labor market.
The Bundestag would also yesterday vote on government plans to ease Germany's strict rules on employment protection in a bid to encourage small firms to hire workers and reduce unemployment.
Many of the reform proposals also have to be approved by the opposition-controlled Bundesrat upper house of parliament, which is due to vote on the health reform on Oct. 17.
Friday's vote is expected to be so tight that Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, de facto Greens leader, has cut short an official visit to the US to return to Berlin and cast his vote, as well as to persuade rebels to back down.
The Berliner Zeitung newspaper named four Greens on Thursday who would vote against the reforms or abstain.
While most politicians agree the creaking health system needs an overhaul, even the reform's drafters admit more radical plans are needed to cope with a costly ageing population.
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