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Merkel Doubles Down in `Intense' Talks to Build New Alliance

Merkel Doubles Down in `Intense' Talks to Build German Coalition

(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed ahead with intense negotiations to form a four-party government, doubling down on all sides to clinch a preliminary deal and avert a political crisis in Europe’s biggest economy.

After 12 hours of negotiations in Berlin that began Sunday morning, two officials from the Green party and one from the Free Democrats, both prospective coalition partners in Merkel’s fourth term, said there were signs of progress, though it was too early to say whether an agreement was possible. All asked not to be identified because the talks are behind closed doors.

A deal would open the door to bargaining on a detailed policy agenda and cabinet posts that Merkel’s party would like to conclude by Christmas. The chancellor, whose hold on power is on the line after 12 years in office, is proposing a 10-point interim accord to bring the exploratory talks to a successful conclusion, Hans Michelbach, a lawmaker from her Bavarian CSU sister party, told reporters.

“There are extremely intense negotiations between the chiefs,” as differences over immigration and climate policy persist, Michael Kellner, general secretary of the Green party, said on ZDF television. It’s too early to tell when the talks might reach a conclusion, he said.

As discussions dragged into the night, Merkel and her Christian Democrat-led bloc missed a second self-imposed deadline within days. A collapse of the talks would risk triggering new elections and a possible end to Merkel’s fourth term before it begins. 

Whatever happens, Germans are headed for uncharted territory. The three factions -- nicknamed Jamaica for their respective party colors -- haven’t governed together at the national level, and post-World War II Germany has never held a repeat election.

Merkel Doubles Down in `Intense' Talks to Build New Alliance

While Merkel has a mathematical majority in parliament to rerun a “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats, the SPD reiterated that it’s not interested after falling to its worst electoral defeat since World War II in September.

“The electorate voted the grand coalition out of office,” party head Martin Schulz told an SPD event in Nuremberg on Sunday, Deutsche Presse-Agentur newswire reported.

After four weeks of preliminary talks, policy on immigration, cuts in carbon emissions and Europe remained obstacles to a coalition accord on Sunday.

Green Demands

“We have moved in many areas, we have gone to the pain threshold” on refugee policy, Green negotiator Juergen Trittin said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag newspaper. The Greens won’t back down from their demand to let a certain number of refugees bring their families to Germany because denying this right would be “inhumane,” he said.

Michelbach of the CSU said negotiators were trying to resolve the family-reunion dispute. “Overall, I’m getting more optimistic,” he told reporters.

Germany’s election eight weeks ago left the country with its most splintered political landscape since the war. Merkel won with her bloc’s lowest share of the vote since 1949, while the anti-establishment Alternative for Germany, which campaigned against the chancellor’s liberal refugee policy, entered parliament with 12.6 percent of the vote.

--With assistance from Rainer Buergin

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Parkin in Berlin at bparkin@bloomberg.net, Birgit Jennen in Berlin at bjennen1@bloomberg.net, Arne Delfs in Berlin at adelfs@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Iain Rogers, Tony Czuczka

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.