German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Monday for “serious, engaged and honest” negotiations with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), as she reaffirmed her desire to form a stable government.

She said that there were national and international expectations that Germany should “be able to function effectively.”

SPD leader Martin Schulz, who immediately after his party’s poor showing in September elections had rejected the idea of another “grand coalition,” has meanwhile given more indications that he is moving away from any rigid position on the issue.

“No options are off the table,” he said on Monday, though he added that there was no saying where preliminary talks, scheduled to begin on Thursday, would lead.

Desire for stability

Merkel met with several other leaders in her center-right Christian Democratic (CDU) party in Berlin on Sunday to formulate a plan as Germany enters its second month without a new government.

After four and a half hours of deliberation, CDU officials told reporters they had agreed to pursue a new alliance with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) to once again form a “grand coalition.”

“We have the firm intention of forming an effective government,” Daniel Günther, conservative premier of the state of Schleswig Holstein, told reporters. “We firmly believe that this would not come from a minority government, but instead an alliance with a parliamentary majority. That is a grand coalition.”

Before the meeting, the head of the Christian Social Union — the CDU’s Bavarian sister party — also threw his weight behind a “grand coalition.”

“An alliance of the conservatives and the SPD is the best option for Germany — better anyway than a coalition with the Free Democrats and the Greens, new elections or a minority government,” Horst Seehofer told German tabloid Bild am Sonntag.

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Source: http://www.dw.com/en/angela-merkels-cdu-backs-german-government-grand-coalition-strategy/a-41539014

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