Merkel Government Emerging

Gro�e Koalition: Merkel spricht von fairer Ressortaufteilung - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten

Everything bow points to a Merkel Grand Coalition taking power in Berlin. Formal negotiations are to start on Monday after there has been a broad agreement on the principles.

There is no denying that everyone will have to pay a price, and highly likely that there will be significant dissent, perhaps slightly more in the SPD than in CDU and CSU.

It looks as if SPD will have eight ministries, while CDU/CSU will have six.

And among those eight are the foreign affairs and finance portofolios as well as justice. CDU/CSU will have economic affairs as well as interior and defence.

That SPD will have foreign affairs is not necessarily bad. It would put some brakes on some of the worst excesses of primarily CSU on the issue of Turkish membership of the European Union.

But of great importance will be how the economic reform program shapes up.

And that will have to await the more detailed coalition talks next week.