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German opposition unveils policiesBy CNN Berlin Correspondent Chris Burns RELATED
QUICKVOTEYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSBERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- German conservative parties have unveiled their platform for expected elections in September, calling for a sales tax increase to finance employment tax cuts, plus looser labor regulations to fight an unemployment rate over 11 percent. But while they lead in the polls, their plan has already come under fire even from among their allies. In their 40-page manifesto, titled "Taking Germany's Opportunities," the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union also want to "reinvigorate trans-Atlantic relations," but oppose Turkish membership in the European Union. They would scrap the plan by the leftist government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to phase out nuclear power. The platform would raise the sales tax 2 percent to 18 percent, about average for a European country, using the money to finance a 2 percent cut in unemployment insurance payments to 4.5 percent of gross income, paid by employers and employees. The corporate tax would be reduced 3 percent to 22 percent, financed by closing tax loopholes. The leftist government is proposing a corporate cut to 19 percent, using similar methods. The platform calls for income tax reform in 2007, cutting the minimum tax 3 points to 12 percent, and the top rate 3 points, to 39 percent. It would also enact a 50-euro-per-month retirement insurance reduction for every child a family has. Citing a low birthrate and ballooning social security costs, the platform calls for health and retirement insurance reform to cut costs to government and businesses. On terrorism, the platform calls for the use of the army inside the country to crack down on terrorists. Up to now, the postwar constitution bars that practice. The platform came immediately under attack by the leftist government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose spokesman called the sales tax "poison for the economy." The conservatives' expected coalition partners, the Free Democrats, said they "will have work to do" to get a future coalition "on a path of market economic sense." The policeman's union said the army shouldn't replace past cutbacks in police officers. Schroeder, struggling with 11.3 percent unemployment, called for elections one year early after his Social Democrats lost the country's biggest state election in May. That defeat gave the conservatives an even larger majority to block legislation in the Bundestag, or upper house or parliament. Schroeder's party platform calls for a 3 percentage point tax increase for incomes over 250,000 euros, a top income tax rate reduced to 19 percent, though financed by closing loopholes, and billions more for education and transport. It stands by job protection and vows to fight harder against illegal immigrant labor. Schroeder's party stands about 15 points behind the conservatives in the polls, though the chancellor leads conservatives leader Angela Merkel in popularity and hopes his party will come from behind in balloting expected September 18. President Horst Koehler is to decide by July 22 whether the vote should go ahead. 
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