{"id":389404,"date":"2018-01-07T08:41:25","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T08:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=389404"},"modified":"2018-01-07T08:41:25","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T08:41:25","slug":"merkel-start-pivotal-talks-coalition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=389404","title":{"rendered":"Merkel to start pivotal talks on coalition"},"content":{"rendered":"

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will launch a new round of coalition talks on Sunday in a bid to end the country’s political stalemate.<\/p>\n

More than three months after its election, Germany is still without a new government.<\/p>\n

The five-day talks will include Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), her allies the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democrats (SPD).<\/p>\n

Many see this as her last chance to form a stable coalition.<\/p>\n

The centre-left SPD has governed jointly with the chancellor’s centre-right party for eight of the last 12 years. But a historically poor poll result in September saw SPD leader Martin Schulz vow to take the Social Democrats into opposition.<\/p>\n

Pressure has mounted on the SPD since November, when Mrs Merkel failed to cobble together a coalition with the liberal FDP and the Greens.<\/p>\n

The chancellor must now convince SPD leaders that they have enough common goals to start formal coalition negotiations by March or April.<\/p>\n

European Union allies, such as France, see Germany as a pillar of stability in the bloc and will be hoping she succeeds.<\/p>\n

What are the sticking points?<\/h5>\n

Immigration, Europe, tax, and healthcare could all become points of contention.<\/p>\n

Within the SPD, there are fears that reforming the grand coalition would cost the party yet more support. The party’s poll ratings are down and some centre-left critics argue the SPD has given up its core principles to cling to power with Mrs Merkel.<\/p>\n

The chancellor faces similar censure from conservatives, who say she has abandoned traditional values and driven voters towards the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is now represented in the federal parliament for the first time.<\/p>\n

\"Seats<\/p>\n

Will the talks succeed?<\/h5>\n

Top leaders from the three potential allies met on 3 January to discuss preliminary issues, and have sounded an optimistic note since then.<\/p>\n

“Confidence has grown, and we go into the talks with optimism,” a joint declaration said.<\/p>\n

SPD Chairman Mr Schulz spoke of a “very focused, meaningful debate”.<\/p>\n

Horst Seehofer of the CSU said he felt the parties would probably agree to govern together, saying: “I think we’ll manage it.”<\/p>\n

The parties have agreed to a media blackout during the talks, which will finish on 11 January.<\/p>\n

If they prove successful – and the SPD’s members vote to proceed – full-blown coalition talks will follow.<\/p>\n

What happens if they fail?<\/h5>\n

If talks fail, Mrs Merkel could form a less stable minority government with the Greens, with SPD support.<\/p>\n

However, she has previously said she would prefer a fresh election to that eventuality.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will launch a new round of coalition talks on Sunday in a bid to end the country’s political stalemate. More than three months after its election, Germany is still without a new government. The five-day talks will include Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), her allies the Christian Social Union (CSU), and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":248852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[5208,1268,15922],"class_list":["post-389404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-angela-merkel","tag-germany","tag-germany-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/248852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}