Under strain

The snow-covered hilltops of the southern German region around Wildbad Kreuth convey the impression of a place full of bliss and harmony. But these days, harmony is solely left to Mother Nature.

Everyone who matters in Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) - the sister party of chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU) - has flocked to the palace-like building at Kreuth.

Firing broadsides at both friend and foe has become an entertaining tradition at the CSU's three-day strategy meeting.

Tax policies under fire

The saber-rattling started Wednesday morning, when CSU head Horst Seehofer said his party had no reason to feel humble just because it had lost its absolute majority support in Bavaria for the first time in its history.

Seehofer attacked the Free Democrats' (FDP) resolve to allow for 24 billion euros ($34.5 billion) in tax reductions as of 2011 despite the country facing record public debts, to be further increased by astronomic fresh borrowing this year.

"I'm sure the FDP will still learn what it means to assume government responsibility," Seehofer quipped in a statement directed at the conservatives' coalition partner in Berlin.

At their own gathering in Stuttgart on Wednesday, the pro-business FDP didn't wait long before responding to the verbal attack. FDP floor leader Birgit Homburger said it was strange that the CSU was so forgetful. She recalled that all sides had agreed on tax reductions during coalition talks last year.

"We looked very hard at where taxes could be lowered and what measures could be financed and justified. So why's so much fuss being made about it now?", Homburger asked in Stuttgart.

Body scanners not to everyone's liking

But tax policies are not the only bone of contention that Berlin's coalition partners almost seem to choke on these days.

There's a controversy about whether or not body scanners should be used at German airports to increase security, with the FDP being far more concerned about any potential dignity issues than Chancellor Merkel's conservatives.

And at least two foreign policy issues have shown time and again that the coalition partners are far from speaking with one voice. Number one is Afghanistan, and with it the debate over whether Germany should send in thousands of more troops in line with US president Barack Obama's request to NATO allies.

And then there's the unresolved question of how to deal with Erika Steinbach, who heads Germany's Federation of Expellees (BdV), a group which represents Germans expelled from eastern Europe after 1945.

Steinbach angered Poland by not accepting the bilateral border treaty after German unification in 1990. Her initial resolve to become a board member of a museum for European expellees has also caused an outcry in Warsaw.

The conservatives and the FDP seem divided over how to deal with Steinbach's recent proposal to renounce the post in return for boosting the Federation of Expellees' say in the museum work.

hg/dpa/Reuters/AP
Editor: Trinity Hartman