BERLIN: Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), which emerged as the largest legislative bloc after last month's elections, began its first formal round of coalition talks with two smaller parties on Thursday.
If successful, the talks, which are being conducted in secrecy, would lead to the first-ever coalition between the SPD, the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) at the national level. The last time the country was ruled by a three-way coalition was in the 1950s.
Speaking from Rome, where she met Pope Francis and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel said she expected forming a new government to proceed more quickly than it did four years ago, when the process took more than five months.
Merkel pledged her continuing cooperation to Draghi "until I am replaced by the new German chancellor, and that will surely happen more quickly than at the last government formation."
Ahead of the talks, SPD co-leader Norbert Walter-Borjans said: "We now have to see that we tick off the points one at a time, and then we will look, but I'm going into the talks with great confidence."
Following exploratory talks after the September 26 poll, the Greens and FDP indicated their readiness on Wednesday to enter into formal talks with the SPD.
The two smaller parties have not ruled out the option of a coalition with Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, which came in just behind the SPD in the elections.
But FDP head Christian Lindner has ruled out "parallel talks."
Speaking to national public radio Deutschlandfunk before the talks, Greens co-leader Annalena Baerbock referred to the challenges facing Germany, highlighting global warming and noting that the Greens and FDP had divergent positions on the issue.
But she also said that a coalition between the three could lead to "a new dynamic to create a social-political revival to bring our country up to date."
Also speaking to Deutschlandfunk on Thursday, FDP secretary general Volker Wissing said that, should talks with the SDP break down, the FDP remained open to a centre-right coalition with the CDU/CSU as the largest coalition partner.
The FDP are closer politically to the CDU/CSU but have agreed with the Greens to first pursue a centre-left grouping.
Armin Laschet, head of Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was continuing to show interest in a deal with the Greens and FDP, while Markus Soeder, the head of its Bavarian-based ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), had already rejected a coalition of this kind, he said.
That led to Wissing expressing irritation with the conservatives. "That doesn't fit together," he said.
Apart from a three-way coalition, the sole remaining credible option for Germany's next government would be a repeat of the grand coalition between the SPD and the CDU/CSU - but this has, for the moment, been ruled out by both major blocs. -- dpa
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