The leader of Germany’s surging Greens party, a likely coalition partner in any new government, raised the pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives to ditch their balanced budget goal and finance a climate protection plan with new debt.

In the biggest challenge of her six-and-a-half years in office, German chancellor Angela Merkel walks a fine line between appearing to be a soft touch, and displaying a lack of commitment to the maintenance of the eurozone, writes Kyran Fitzgerald