Pressure grew for a quick start to talks on Germany’s next Government as newly elected lawmakers held their first meetings on Tuesday and tensions simmered in outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bloc, which declined to its worst-ever result in the country’s election.
The narrow winners of Sunday’s parliamentary election, the center-left Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz, underlined their hopes of a quick start to talks with the likely kingmakers in a new government. And several prominent figures in Merkel’s center-right Union bloc questioned an initial push by election loser Armin Laschet to lead a new administration.
Since neither of the traditional big parties wants to renew their outgoing “grand coalition” of rivals, the third- and fourth-placed parties — the environmentalist Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats — appear to hold the keys to a parliamentary majority. Leaders of those parties plan to meet each other this week to search for common ground before entertaining advances from potential suitors.
“The Greens and Free Democrats have been invited by us to hold exploratory talks with us this week already if they want,” Social Democratic parliamentary group leader Rolf Muetzenich said before a gathering of his party’s newly elected and outgoing lawmakers.