The president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has called on political leaders to rethink on their positions and try again to form a government after having met the party leaders on November 21, 2017. The exploratory talks to form a new government between Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc, the left-leaning Greens and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) have broken down. The breakup has regrettably withstood Merkel’s decade old unvarying solid and comfortable rule in six parties Bundestag.
Merkel has been consistently polled more popular. She has never faced inner-party rival and considered an undoubted electoral asset for both country and the continent. Does she have enough political capital to emerge out of prevalent limbo? Is her “leader of the west” status still unassailable? Or is it her decline or end of German democracy, the SPD, the ‘reinventing’ stronger Europe? Both governance in Germany and leadership of Europe certainly require an alternative vision.
