Angela Merkel woos her opponents with vista of another grand coalition

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel previewed the agenda of her next government, saying any coalition partner would have to support a balanced budget and broadly probusiness policies.

In a speech to members of her Christian Democratic Union, Merkel reached out in the clearest terms yet to the Social Democratic Party, her main opponents, in effect proposing a rerun of the “grand coalition” that governed Germany for the past four years.

“I don’t understand why the SPD never said a good word about the grand coalition during the election campaign,” Merkel, Europe’s longest serving leader, told a regional party convention at the Baltic sea resort of Kuehlungsborn on Saturday. “We did a good job. We worked well together.”

Merkel’s options to secure a parliamentary majority for her fourth term narrowed after coalition talks with the Free Democrats and the Green party broke down on Nov 19. She reiterated her opposition to a repeat election, saying Saturday that “I don’t like the idea of asking people to go to the polls again.”

Instead, she laid out a potential path to another alliance between her CDU-led bloc and the Social Democrats. Both groups fell to historic lows in a national election on Sept. 24, putting Germany in what Merkel called “a difficult situation” that’s left Europe’s biggest economy at a political impasse for two months.

Merkel and SPD head Martin Schulz, her defeated election challenger, are scheduled to meet Thursday at the invitation of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is urging party leaders to avoid new elections.

Merkel evoked the SPD’s campaign slogan emphasizing a fair society while saying the best way to get there is with a “common-sense, business-oriented policy,” coupled with limited tax relief. “Only those who are interested in these goals as much as we are can have a role in government,” Merkel said. “Germany needs a stable government. But it has to be government that moves the country forward.”