German’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) have agreed to form a grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, the CDU, after months of political uncertainty.

Some 66 percent of the SPD members approved entering a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union (CSU), the social democrats’ official confirmed on Sunday after a postal ballot.

“We now have clarity,” SPD chief Olaf Schols announced in the party’s HQ in Berlin. He added that he'll work on putting a cabinet together this week. Scholz has already informed Merkel on his party fellows’ decision.

The stalemate to form a government has lasted for months, following the September 24 general election. The "grand coalition" has governed Germany since 2013.

If the Social Democrat members voted against the talks, it would almost certainly trigger fresh elections that could end Merkel’s 12-year leadership of the country.

In late February CDU on its part approved a coalition deal with the SPD. The Christian Democrats' conference in Berlin followed Merkel’s announcement of her picks for a new, younger cabinet intended to rejuvenate the party. </s> German's center-left Social Democrats (SPD) have agreed to form a grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, the CDU, after months of political uncertainty. The deal was reached despite divisions within the SPD.Some 66 percent of the SPD members approved entering a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union (CSU), the social democrats' official confirmed on Sunday after a postal ballot.Almost 464,000 members were eligible for voting, with a total of 378,437 having cast their ballot, NTV reports "We now have clarity," SPD chief Olaf Schols announced in the party's HQ in Berlin. He added that he'll work on putting a cabinet together this week. Scholz has already informed Merkel on his party fellows' decision. The acting Chancellor congratulated the SPD on the "clear result," saying she is looking forward to continuing work with the Social Democrats. If the Social Democrat members voted against the talks, it would almost certainly trigger fresh elections that could end Merkel's 12-year leadership of the country.In late February CDU on its part approved a coalition deal with the SPD. The Christian Democrats' conference in Berlin followed Merkel's announcement of her picks for a new, younger cabinet intended to rejuvenate the party.The stalemate to form a government has lasted for months, following the September 24 general election. Shortly after the polls, in which Merkel's party along with the SPD saw a dramatic drop in voter support, the chancellor attempted to form so-called 'Jamaica' coalition with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens.The option evaporated as the FDP pulled out of the negotiations, with divisions over immigration being among the key stumbling blocks. Merkel was then forced to look for another coalition partner to avoid new polls or forming a minority government.Former SPD leader Martin Schulz repeatedly ruled out forming a coalition with the CDU both in the run-up to the September elections and after them. The parties locked horns over their vision for Europe, among other issues. Schultz has advocated strongly for the creation of a 'United States of Europe' under a single constitution by 2025. This position has received little support from CDU members.The potential new alliance with Merkel was also met with vehement opposition from some SPD members, especially within the party's youth wing. Against all odds and despite internal divisions in the SPD, the two parties finally reached a coalition deal in February. </s> Members of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) on Sunday voted in favour of a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives.

Over 66 percent voted "yes", Dietmar Nietan, head of the SPD Mandate and Counting Commission, announced at a press conference at the SPD Headquarters.

The 463,723 party members had between February 20 and Friday midnight to decide if they approved of their party again being part of a government led by Merkel, reports Efe news.

The conditions of the pact and the concrete measures that will be implemented were detailed in a 177-page deal that was negotiated between January and February.

It includes key proposals of the SPD and assigns major ministries such as finance and foreign affairs to the SPD.

The result ended a five-month-long political stalemate after the September 24, 2017, Federal Parliament elections.

Merkel is poised to be elected as the new chancellor in the March 14 plenary session of the Bundestag, the Federal Parliament. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - The result of a ballot of the Social Democrats’ (SPD) roughly 464,000 members on whether to join a coalition with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc that would end political limbo in Europe’s largest economy will be announced on Sunday.

A postal ballot paper of one of Germany's 464,000 Social Democrats (SPD) is pictured, as a party member votes on whether the party should go ahead with the coalition agreement its leaders clinched this month with Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic party (CDU/CSU) in Berlin, Germany, February 21, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

The outcome of the vote is unclear. A poll released on Wednesday showed 56 percent of SPD voters favored another tie-up with Merkel but it surveyed a far broader group than the party members taking part in the decisive ballot.

The SPD’s Barbara Hendricks, who is environment minister in Germany’s outgoing coalition, said on Thursday she expected members to back a new alliance with Merkel’s conservatives by a margin of 60 percent.

But Kevin Kuehnert, leader of the SPD’s youth wing, told Reuters on Friday he was optimistic that party members would reject such an alliance.

Many senior figures in Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) want to try out a minority government if the SPD members reject a ‘grand coalition’.

In November - after the collapse of coalition talks with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and ecologist Greens - Merkel said she would prefer a new election to leading a minority government. But she has since been more guarded on that issue.

Many in the Christian Social Union (CSU) - the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s CDU - along with many in the SPD want a new election if SPD members vote ‘No’ to a grand coalition.

Here is an outline of what will happen if SPD delegates vote against coalition talks.

* The onus shifts to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to decide how to proceed. He would meet with Merkel and could urge her to try to form another coalition. She could try to build a three-way alliance of the conservatives, FDP and the Greens. But these unnatural partners are unlikely to want to join forces after their initial attempt at building an alliance collapsed in November when the FDP spectacularly walked out of talks, eroding trust between them.

* Merkel - or another candidate if her conservatives take the unlikely decision to oust her - could decide to head up a minority government in what would be a post-war first for Germany. If she were to form such a government, the procedure would be as follows:

* Steinmeier would set a date for a ‘chancellor vote’ in the Bundestag lower house of parliament and suggest Merkel run. If she gets an absolute majority, she becomes chancellor.

* If she fails to get an absolute majority in that first round of voting, another vote can be held within 14 days.

* If she fails to get an absolute majority in the second round, a third vote is held. If she gets a plurality in that vote, Steinmeier would need to appoint her chancellor within seven days. If she does not get a plurality, Steimeier would have seven days to decide whether to appoint her as a minority chancellor or dissolve parliament and call a new election.

* If Steinmeier were to call a new election, it would have to take place within 60 days. While Merkel’s personal ratings are slipping, she has said she would want to run for the conservatives if another poll is held.

* Once Merkel has become chancellor, she could ask for a confidence vote in parliament. She could force a new election by urging her allies and other lawmakers to vote against her. </s> Europe breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday as Germany’s five-month political deadlock ended with a fourth term for Angela Merkel.

After heated debate and several false starts, a closely-watched postal vote of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) ended in two-thirds’ backing for another grand coalition in Berlin.

The result opens the door to another SPD alliance with Dr Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and her Bavarian CSU allies, and their third grand coalition since 2005.

“We now have clarity,” said Olaf Scholz, acting SPD leader. “This result gives us the strength we need to enter into government, get the country moving in the right direction, and start the process of renewal in the party.”

On Monday, President Frank Walter Steinmeier will nominate Dr Merkel as Germany’s next federal chancellor, to be voted on in the Bundestag parliament on March 14th. A new federal government is likely to be in place before Easter.

“It’s good for our country that this phase of insecurity has passed and that three parties are prepared to accept government responsibility,” said Mr Steinmeier, a long-time SPD politician who pressed his party to return to power despite a disastrous election result last September.

Almost 450,000 SPD members were entitled to vote on the coalition deal struck with the CDU/CSU. Of 362,933 valid postal ballots, some 239,604 members backed entering the grand coalition – 66 per cent support – while 123,329 opposed.

The result will bring relief to Berlin’s EU partners, ending post-war Germany’s longest-ever interregnum which left the continent in a holding pattern since last summer.

On Sunday Dr Merkel congratulated the SPD on its “clear vote”, and said she looked forward to a “continued co-operation for the good of our country”.

Her political future hung on the whim of the SPD vote after her first attempt to form an coalition – with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens – failed last year.

SPD left-wingers and its vocal youth wing campaigned for a return to the opposition benches, as was promised on election night last September. However, SPD leaders exploited their leverage as Dr Merkel’s last alternative to fresh elections to secure an expansionist programme for government as well as the key finance, foreign and labour ministries.

“We have a good economic situation...we need investment, and we have the means for this, which we have to use sensibly,” said Andrea Nahles, the SPD Bundestag leader on Sunday evening.

French president Emmanuel Macron, waiting since September for a response from Berlin on his euro zone reform proposals, called Sunday’s vote “good news for Europe”. </s> Members of Germany's Social Democrat Party (SPD) have voted in favour of entering a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in a postal ballot, according to a statement by the party.

The vote clears the way for a rerun of the "grand coalition" that has governed Germany since 2013. It also puts an end to more than four months of political uncertainty in Europe's largest economy by making Merkel the country's chancellor for the fourth term.

SPD acting leader Olaf Scholz said on Saturday turnout in the poll had been "very, very high" after an intense internal campaign that pitted the party's pro-coalition leadership against its more left-wing youth wing, which campaigned for "no".

Representatives from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, alongside partners from the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) party, agreed on terms with SPD negotiators for a new partnership last month.

Al Jazeera's Dominic Kane, reporting from the capital Berlin, said that two-thirds of the party members voted to form another grand coalition with Merkel's bloc.

"It is a decisive majority, but there is no sense of jubilation among the SDP leadership," he said.

"The heads, rather than the hearts of the party members, made this decision. They believe being in coalition with Merkel costs this party votes."

Many in the party, including former leader Martin Schulz, had ruled out forming a coalition with Merkel's conservatives, saying that September's poll results - which saw the SPD recording its worst post-war election performance, at 20.5 percent - had directed the party to go into opposition.

However, the SPD agreed to negotiate with Merkel's conservatives after talks with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the environmentalist Greens on a three-way tie-up collapsed in November.

Schulz, the who led the party during the elections, quit in the process of the coalition talks.

The SPD has already been the junior partner in two Merkel-led "grand coalitions", from 2005 to 2009 and from 2013 to 2017.

Merkel's CDU/CSU alliance had finished first, securing 33 percent of the vote, down nine percentage points from 2013.

The biggest shock, however, was the emergence of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as the country's third-biggest political force, winning a 12.6 percent share of the vote. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - The result of a ballot of the Social Democrats’ (SPD) roughly 464,000 members on whether to join a coalition with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc that would end political limbo in Europe’s largest economy will be announced on Sunday.

The outcome of the vote is unclear. A poll released on Wednesday showed 56 percent of SPD voters favored another tie-up with Merkel but it surveyed a far broader group than the party members taking part in the decisive ballot.

The SPD’s Barbara Hendricks, who is environment minister in Germany’s outgoing coalition, said on Thursday she expected members to back a new alliance with Merkel’s conservatives by a margin of 60 percent.

But Kevin Kuehnert, leader of the SPD’s youth wing, told Reuters on Friday he was optimistic that party members would reject such an alliance.

Many senior figures in Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) want to try out a minority government if the SPD members reject a‘grand coalition’.

In November - after the collapse of coalition talks with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and ecologist Greens - Merkel said she would prefer a new election to leading a minority government. But she has since been more guarded on that issue.

Many in the Christian Social Union (CSU) - the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s CDU - along with many in the SPD want a new election if SPD members vote‘No’ to a grand coalition.

Here is an outline of what will happen if SPD delegates vote against coalition talks.

* The onus shifts to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to decide how to proceed. He would meet with Merkel and could urge her to try to form another coalition. She could try to build a three-way alliance of the conservatives, FDP and the Greens. But these unnatural partners are unlikely to want to join forces after their initial attempt at building an alliance collapsed in November when the FDP spectacularly walked out of talks, eroding trust between them.

* Merkel - or another candidate if her conservatives take the unlikely decision to oust her - could decide to head up a minority government in what would be a post-war first for Germany. If she were to form such a government, the procedure would be as follows:

* Steinmeier would set a date for a‘chancellor vote’ in the Bundestag lower house of parliament and suggest Merkel run. If she gets an absolute majority, she becomes chancellor.

* If she fails to get an absolute majority in that first round of voting, another vote can be held within 14 days.

* If she fails to get an absolute majority in the second round, a third vote is held. If she gets a plurality in that vote, Steinmeier would need to appoint her chancellor within seven days. If she does not get a plurality, Steimeier would have seven days to decide whether to appoint her as a minority chancellor or dissolve parliament and call a new election.

* If Steinmeier were to call a new election, it would have to take place within 60 days. While Merkel’s personal ratings are slipping, she has said she would want to run for the conservatives if another poll is held.

* Once Merkel has become chancellor, she could ask for a confidence vote in parliament. She could force a new election by urging her allies and other lawmakers to vote against her. </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz stressed the need for social cohesion

German politicians have achieved a breakthrough in talks aimed at forming a new coalition government.

A blueprint for formal negotiations was agreed between Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their former coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD).

Politicians stayed up all night to discuss the 28-page document, with the talks lasting more than 24 hours.

But they managed to reach agreement on key sticking points such as migration.

They plan to limit asylum-seeker arrivals to about 200,000 annually. The blueprint also speaks of capping at 1,000 a month the number of migrants who will be allowed to join their family living in Germany.

Stress on 'social cohesion'

Mrs Merkel and SPD leader Martin Schulz told a news conference they were optimistic that a new "grand coalition" could be formed.

They spoke of a "fresh start" for Germany, and Mr Schulz said that in Europe "we are determined to deploy Germany's strength".

Both stressed the need to ensure Germany's "social cohesion", a veiled recognition of voter frustration with centrist politics, amid tensions over the influx of asylum seekers.

The September election saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) win 94 seats in parliament - a first for post-war Germany.

Both the CDU and SPD suffered their worst election results for more than 50 years.

Uneasy partnership

By Jenny Hill in Berlin

After a gruelling all-night session - fuelled by currywurst - Angela Merkel appears to have clinched the deal.

The breakthrough is no doubt a relief to the chancellor, who might have faced the prospect of fresh elections had the talks failed. But Mrs Merkel won't be cracking open the Sekt straight away.

These were just exploratory talks, aimed at establishing whether there's a basis upon which a coalition can be formally negotiated. Before the next round of talks can go ahead, the SPD must give the go-ahead at a special party conference.

Bear in mind that many in the SPD - which had originally refused to work with Mrs Merkel again - blame her for their disastrous election result, and are still uncomfortable about another four years in her shadow.

Even if they approve the negotiations, any coalition treaty will be put to the SPD's 400,000 members in a postal ballot. Mrs Merkel is not out of the woods yet.

German official figures show that 280,000 asylum seekers arrived in 2016, a drop of more than 600,000 on the total for 2015. Arrivals fell after EU countries and Turkey tightened border controls.

However, the number of asylum applications continued to rise in 2016. The huge 2015 influx - many of them Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans fleeing war - created a major integration problem for German authorities.

Stumbling blocks

The centre-right CDU and its Bavarian CSU ally have been unable to form a government since the inconclusive election.

The German daily Die Zeit published the text of the CDU/CSU-SPD blueprint for formal negotiations. Under a coalition the parties would seek to:

Crack down on tax avoidance in the EU, plugging tax loopholes exploited by US tech giants and other big corporations

Press for "equal pay for equal work" across the EU, to make the labour market fairer

Turn the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) - the main bailout fund - into a European Monetary Fund under parliamentary control

Seek joint policies with France on all major international issues

Create a centre for artificial intelligence with France

Adopt measures to reduce child poverty, strengthen equal rights for women and attract more foreign skilled workers to Germany

Promote renewable energy, so that it achieves a 65% share of power generation by 2030.

Initially the SPD ruled out governing with Mrs Merkel in charge again. But Mr Schulz changed his mind after CDU coalition talks with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens broke down.

It is Germany's longest ever post-war period of coalition-building and there is still a long way to go before a coalition deal can be clinched.

The SPD will hold a special congress in Bonn on 21 January to decide how to proceed. </s> Angela Merkel has been sworn in as Chancellor of Germany after lawmakers voted to re-elect her as leader in a close vote Wednesday morning.

The vote in parliament ended almost six months of political turmoil after a federal election saw millions of voters desert the two mainstream parties — Merkel’s CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) — turning instead to parties on the left and right.

In a secret ballot, 364 of the Bundestag’s 709 members voted in favor of Merkel — nine more than the 50% required. Thirty-five MPs from the parties governing under Merkel did not vote to re-elect her.

Merkel’s victory marks the final stepping stone on the path to Germany’s new government — a renewal of the so-called grand coalition (“GroKo”) between the Chancellor’s CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD.

The former leader of the SPD, Martin Schulz, had initially ruled out a new GroKo, pledging to take his party into opposition, but was forced to change his stance after coalition talks between the CDU, Green Party and liberal FDP collapsed in November, raising the possibility of new elections.

After weeks of negotiations, a coalition treaty was produced and later approved by SPD members who voted via postal ballot. But many SPD members and politicians remain unhappy with their party’s involvement in the new coalition.

Far right in opposition

The renewal of the grand coalition means the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now officially the lead opposition party in parliament.

The AfD was founded in 2013 and its virulently anti-immigration platform proved popular with voters in the September election.

The party surged into third place in the election with 12.6% of the vote, the first time in decades that a far-right, openly nationalist party had won seats in Germany’s federal parliament.

AfD politicians have campaigned strongly against Merkel and her policies. Following the election result in September, co-leader Alexander Gauland promised his party would provide staunch opposition to the new government, adding: “We will hunt them. We will hunt Mrs. Merkel or whomever. And we will take back our country and our people.”
SPD party members approve with 66% in favour to allow to form a coalition with Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU, ending a five-month political deadlock after the federal elections.