Merkel’s future uncertain as talks fail

BERLIN• Germany was in crisis Monday night as Angela Merkel fought to rescue her chancellorship following the collapse of coalition talks.

The country to which Europe has looked for stability for over a decade is facing weeks, if not months, of damaging uncertainty.

“We are now facing a situation that has never happened before in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany ... for almost 70 years,” President Frank- Walter Steinmeier said.

In an unusually strongly worded statement, Steinmeier rejected calls for new elections and called on the political parties to “pause and reconsider their positions,” after the failure of talks to form a coalition government.

“The mission to form a government remains. You cannot just hand back responsibility to the electorate,” he said. “All political parties elected to parliament must act for the common good. I expect a demonstration of readiness to form a government in the near future.”

But the prospects of an agreement looked bleak after Merkel’s last hope, her former coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party (SPD), refused to throw her a lifeline.

The SPD is the only party with enough seats to prop up Merkel in a two- way coalition. But Martin Schulz, its leader, vowed to take the party into opposition after it suffered its worst result in September’s election, and he made clear Monday that he was standing by his decision.

“We consider it important that citizens can reassess the situation. We do not shy away from new elections. We are not available for entry into coalition given the election results of Sept. 24,” the party said in a statement. That leaves Merkel a choice between attempting to form a minority government and holding new elections.

Postwar Germany has never had a minority government and Merkel has made clear that she does not want to head the first. She said that “new elections would be the better path,” insisting she was ready to lead her party into a fresh poll. However, she will fear further losses in a new election, and her Christian Democratic Union party ( CDU) may decide it would fare better under new leadership.

For the first time in more than 12 years in power Merkel looks in serious trouble, and Germany is talking of an end to the Merkel era.

President Steinmeier may now be her best hope of holding on to power. There is no strict deadline to form a government, although it is thought the current impasse could last months as Steinmeier has the power under the German constitution to decide when fresh elections are called.

Merkel is believed to have told party allies privately that her fate is now in his hands.

The CDU has rallied around her, and there is no clear successor as party leader.

But the longer the crisis continues, the more the whispers against her will grow.