Greens hold key as Merkel’s party seeks to form coalition

ANGELA MERKEL’S Christian Democrat party (CDU) held exploratory coalition talks with the German Greens yesterday as it sought to cling to power despite losing last month’s election.

Armin Laschet is toiling to put together a coalition despite leading the CDU to its worst ever result. “We came second,” he told a news conference after the talks. “But the situation we face is that a new government has to be formed now and there are several options.”

Olaf Scholz remains favourite to succeed Mrs Merkel as chancellor after leading his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) to a narrow victory. However, he did not secure a majority and under German law whichever coalition is first to win a vote of confidence in parliament is entitled to govern.

To do that either Mr Laschet or Mr Scholz needs to secure the support of both the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

The FDP has already made clear it is ready to talk to both sides but Mr Laschet faces a harder sell with the Greens, who are natural SPD allies.

His political future is hanging by a thread after his disastrous election campaign and there are already calls for him to step down as CDU leader. His only hope is to contrive a coalition to keep Mr Scholz out of the chancellery.

A coalition of the CDU, Greens and FDP “would have a breadth across society that would really make it possible to modernise”, he told journalists.

The Greens were more circumspect. “The talks were constructive and objective,” said Annalena Baerbock, the Greens’ leader, adding: “Our differences have become clear, as well as shared concerns such as the modernisation of the country.”