Don’t count on the success of Germany’s new coalition talks

By J.C. | BERLIN

“I BELIEVE the talks can succeed...I go into these talks with optimism”, Angela Merkel said yesterday as she arrived at the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to begin exploratory discussions on a new “grand coalition” (GroKo) of the centre-right and centre-left. Not everyone in Berlin is so sure. Insiders in both parties are almost uniformly cautious, putting the chances of success at around 50% and warning that wrenching the two parties close enough together to form a government will test the manoeuvrability and persuasion skills of their (rather weak) leaders to their limits.

The Christian Democrats (CDU), and especially the Christian Social Union (CSU), its Bavarian sister party, want to go right, fearing that they have lost their distinctive edge after years of centrist Merkelism—and that they could lose additional votes to the right-populist Alternative for Germany in the future. A poll published last month by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a think-tank close to the CDU, found that most members see themselves some way to the right of the party. Meanwhile the SPD really wants to go left, returning to opposition to lick its wounds, renew its cadres and distance itself from Mrs Merkel, with whom it has governed for 8 of her 12 years at the top.

At the election on September 24th all three parties suffered their worst results since 1949. The SPD immediately ruled out a new spell in government, forcing the CDU/CSU to begin talks with the pro-business FDP and the environmentalist Greens (which together make up the only other viable majority in the Bundestag). Those talks collapsed on November 20th, forcing the SPD back to the negotiating table. Martin Schulz, its leader and failed candidate for chancellor, was particularly reluctant. He had to be talked around by keener colleagues like Sigmar Gabriel, the foreign minister. The party’s base is deeply sceptical about a new GroKo; the Young Socialists, its influential youth wing, is leading internal opposition to the idea.

The exploratory talks—talks about talks, in effect—are due to run until Friday. Then at a special conference in Bonn on January 21st some 600 SPD delegates (representing party members and interest groups) will vote on whether to proceed to formal negotiations. There is no certainty that they will. If such talks follow they could take several weeks. Any deal will also have to be signed off by all SPD members, a vote which itself will take a fortnight. So no new government is likely before Easter. But once in place it will probably be stable, albeit constrained by a relatively limited coalition deal, and Mrs Merkel will be able to serve out the final year or two of her chancellorship according to plan.

But if not? Mr Schulz, after all, will need significant concessions in order to win over his delegates and then members. He is expected to bid for the powerful finance ministry, for example, as well as the abolition of private health insurance and concessions to Emmanuel Macron’s proposals for euro-zone integration. None of this will be easy for the chancellor, diminished in her own party, to give (though she may be willing to trade the finance ministry for the foreign one, securing a big job and thus a future run at the chancellorship for Ursula von der Leyen, the Merkelish defence minister).

If the GroKo talks break down Mrs Merkel will face a choice between forming a minority government and holding new elections (for which she has to lose three successive votes of confidence in the Bundestag). Neither is an appealing prospect. Unlike smaller neighbours like, say, Denmark, Germany has no tradition of minority governments. The chancellor is known to oppose the notion. But new elections may not break the deadlock: current polls suggest the main parties would achieve vote shares that are little different from those they got in September.

Failed talks may even spell the end of Mrs Merkel, who seems to seek a fourth term more out of a sense of duty to the country than out of enthusiasm. If the SPD’s resistance to another identity- and vote-sapping turn with the chancellor forces the country back to the urns, she may conclude that she has become an impediment to Germany’s dearly-cherished stability, and make her exit. To scare off one set of potential coalition partners may be regarded as unfortunate. To scare off two could prove terminal.