Angela merkel

The German election result means that a three party coalition will almost certainly be needed to form a government. Olaf Scholz, the SPD leader, has made clear just now that he is going to try and form a coalition with the Greens and the Free Democrats. Whoever succeeds her will take time to build up the authority that Merkel had in these meetings Scholz has a strong claim on the chancellery. The SPD came first in the election and polls consistently showed that he was Germans’ preferred choice for candidate. Despite being from a different party, Scholz successfully positioned himself as the Merkel continuity candidate. The results might suggest a

Germany’s election campaign has taken many unexpected turns. In January, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), were leading by about 20 percentage points. By April, the Greens were ahead. By July, the CDU/CSU had bounced back, and then all of a sudden, the Social Democrats (SPD) came out of nowhere to a solid lead by last weekend. The gap has since closed a little ahead of Sunday’s election — and the joyride is still not over. What is also different about these elections is that, based on current polling, four, five or even six coalitions might be arithmetically possible. So the real battle will likely start only after the election. One

Jamaica, Germany, Kenya or traffic lights? The names of the potential German coalitions — and their corresponding party colours — can be quite exotic. But as the vote has begun to split in the run up to the federal elections next month, the possible combinations that will make up Germany’s government have grown. The race is still wide open. Coalitions were purposefully built into Germany’s post-war democracy — the voting system mixes first-past-the-post with proportional representation to ensure a workable splintering. With one notable exception in 1957, no political party has received the votes of over half of the electorate outright. It usually falls to the party with the most

Angela Merkel visited the UK yesterday for the last time as German chancellor – the 22nd visit she has paid in her 16 years at the helm of German politics. Such an auspicious occasion however did not stop Boris Johnson from starting their joint press statement with a humorous jibe. A wry smile on his face, he told Merkel: ‘it was certainly a tradition, Angela, for England to lose to Germany in international football tournaments and I’m obviously grateful to you for breaking with that tradition, just for once.’ Good-natured, football-themed exchanges between the two nations were also in play elsewhere. The German ambassador in London, Andreas Michaelis, tweeted on Tuesday

Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel have just held a joint press conference following their meeting at Chequers. The usual contrast in styles was on display; Merkel picked her words very cautiously while Johnson made sausages jokes—quipping that the ‘wurst was behind us’ when it came to chilled meats and the Northern Ireland protocol.  On a more substantive level, Merkel expressed concerns about the size of the crowds at the Euro 2020 games; and remember they’ll be even bigger for the semi-final and final at Wembley. But Johnson argued that the vaccines and pre-match testing made these pretty safe events. The Johnson-Merkel relationship has been defined by Brexit. But today’s visit was

Perhaps the most absurd thing ever said about Angela Merkel is that she was the de facto leader of the western world. She has certainly been one of Europe’s most successful politicians, if you define success as political survival. But as she comes to the end of her 16 years in office, her luck is deserting her and the mess she has created is becoming horribly apparent. She leaves behind a split EU that is not just unled but might now be unleadable. Humiliating reminders of Merkel’s imploded authority come regularly. Take her latest idea to keep British tourists out of the EU this summer. Germany is imposing a mandatory