Germany gets a new government

BERLIN >> After 16 years under Angela Merkel, German leaders Wednesday announced a new government with a new chancellor, Olaf Scholz — a longawaited return to power for the center-left, in a coalition that faces immediate challenges posed by the pandemic, the economy and foreign relations.

The coalition will face internal tensions, as well, combining Scholz’s Social Democrats with the progressive Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats. Leaders of all three stepped in front of the cameras Wednesday to announce a 177-page governing deal they had negotiated since shortly after the Sept. 26 election.

Sharing a stage Wednesday, the party leaders acknowledged their differences but said they had found enough common ground to push forward with plans to beat back the pandemic, increase investment in digital and climate infrastructure, raise the minimum wage and put Germany on a path to quit coal and expand renewable energy to 80% by 2030.

“We are united in a belief in progress and that politics can do good,” Scholz, 63, said at a joint news conference. “We are united in the will to make the country better, to move it forward and to keep it together.”

All three parties’ executive bodies or memberships will have to approve the document before Scholz and his new Cabinet can be sworn in. That is expected to take place by the second week of December.

It is the end of an era for a nation and for an entire continent.

For more than a decade, Merkel has been not just chancellor of Germany but also the leader, in effect, of Europe. She steered her country — which has Europe’s largest economy — and the continent through successive crises, and became an indispensable voice in defense of liberal democracy in the face of far-right movements and rising autocracy in Europe and elsewhere.

“The new government will essentially be one of continuity, not change,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist of Berenberg Bank.