German cabinet faces Green rebellion

Chancellor Schroeder faces tough times ahead

By BBC Europe correspondent William Horsley

The German Government faces a tough survival test this week, after confirmation over the weekend that some members of the Green Party - the junior partner in the ruling coalition - will vote against sending troops to join the US-led war against terror.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's announcement last week that the country is preparing to send about 4,000 personnel, including special forces, to the Afghanistan region shattered the uneasy calm within the coalition.

German soldiers will not be on the front line

Most of the Greens' regional branches have declared themselves against the deployment.

And at the weekend at least 12 Green MPs made clear that they would abstain or vote against a crucial vote in the Bundestag on Thursday.

Several members of Mr Schroeder's Social Democratic Party are threatening to do the same.

The coalition commands an overall majority of only seven seats, so the prospect now is that the government will fail to win that vote by itself.

The promised support of most opposition members of the Bundestag will ensure that the deployment is approved in parliament.

Many Germans are against any military involvement

But the leading newspaper, FT Deutschland, predicts that the end result of the internal split will be the fall of the coalition.

Several prominent figures among the Greens have said that their opposition to military involvement is a matter of principle, and that the time has come to end bring the coalition down from within.

Under German parliamentary rules the government would only fall if defectors from the Greens were to abstain or vote against the coalition in a vote of confidence.

That is now a distinct possibility. If the government should fall it might be quickly replaced by a new coalition between the Social Democrats and the Liberals, or else Germany could face snap general elections one year before the end of its fixed four-year term.