Frank Decker, a political scientist at the University of Bonn, also had no doubt about what is at stake. “It is absolutely in her interest for this government to come into being, because failure would spell her end,” he told the Phoenix news channel.
A poll by Welt online found that 61.4 percent of those surveyed said a collapse of talks would mean an end to Merkel as chancellor. Only 31.5 percent thought otherwise. Merkel, in power for 12 years, had initially set a Thursday deadline to decide if the motley crew of parties had found enough common ground to begin formal coalition negotiations.
But the talks went into overtime without a breakthrough. Key among sticking points is the hot-button issue of immigration. The CSU, which lost significant ground in Bavaria to the AfD and faces a crucial state election next year, wants to limit the number of future arrivals at 200,000 a year.
German media reports said the Greens were ready give way on the CSU’s demand, but in return, they insist that war refugees — who are granted only temporary protection — should be allowed to bring their family members to Germany.
“We will not accept that people who are already getting a lower status of protection by law are also excluded from family reunions. That is inhumane,” Greens negotiator Juergen Trittin told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
The Greens will be wary of making concessions ahead of a party congress in a week’s time, and rank-and-file members can still torpedo any deal that they deem unsatisfactory. Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier played down the conflict, telling the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that if negotiators are “battling hard over major questions like migration and climate change, that may not be a bad thing for democracy”.
There is “no need to start holding panic debates about new elections,” he said. He added that “all sides are aware of their responsibilities. And this responsibility means not returning their mandate to voters.”
If the potential tie-up, dubbed a “Jamaica coalition” because the parties’ colours match those of the Jamaican flag, comes together, it would be the first of its kind at the national level. But questions abound about how stable it would be.
SPD parliamentary chief Andrea Nahles told the Funke media group she believed such an alliance would be “a coalition of mistrust, in which there is constant conflict, where each one plays his own cards, and where there isn’t teamwork.” Decker, the political scientist, said he “wouldn’t place a bet on whether this government will hold together for four years.”