“The outside world is not waiting for us. Nor does it expect endless coalition talks”, said Friedrich Merz as soon as he announced the victory of his CDU/CSU party in the German general election on Sunday. With 28.5% of the vote, the Christian Democratic Party knows that it will have to form a fragile coalition with the Social Democrats and, possibly, the Greens.
The two parties in the outgoing government both suffered crushing defeats, with 16.4% (SPD) and 11.6% (Greens) of the vote...