Merkel closes in on forming coalition

BERLIN:Chancellor Angela Merkel said her conservatives reached a breakthrough deal on Friday with Germany’s second biggest party, the Social Democrats, to build a new coalition government to give Europe a “fresh start”.

After more than 24 hours of talks and months of political paralysis, red-eyed party chiefs and their negotiating teams reached an in-principle agreement that could lead to a new government for the biggest EU economy in coming months.

In the all-night negotiations in Berlin, the three sides -- Merkel’s Christian Democrats, Horst Seehofer of her Bavarian allies the CSU, and the Social Democrats (SPD) of Martin Schulz -- hammered out a 28-page paper as the basis for the formal coalition talks ahead. The hope was to form a new government “before Easter”, which falls on April 1, said the CSU’s Seehofer.

In their joint blueprint, the parties agreed on key policy outlines -- to join EU partner France in a push to “strengthen and reform” the eurozone, to limit the influx of asylum seekers to Germany to around 200,000 a year, and to refrain from tax hikes given the healthy state of state coffers.

Merkel voiced relief that the trio of parties had passed a milestone, telling media that “the world is not waiting for us -- we need a fresh start in Europe. A fresh start for Europe is also a fresh start for Germany”.