Germany plans to raise the minimum wage to €9.19 per hour next year and to €9.35 in 2020, the labour minister said, paving the way for a possible boost to private consumption in Europe’s biggest economy.

At a moment when faith in politics, especially international politics, to champion liberal, uplifting, human-rights values is at a low ebb, it is reassuring that Angela Merkel seems close to securing a fourth term as Germany’s chancellor.

The chancellor’s failure to form a coalition may lead to fresh elections, and a power vacuum in Berlin would have a knock-on effect in Paris, writes Philippe Legrain

Europeans must find solutions to shared problems, with Germany and France leading the way as they did in the past, says Guy Verhofstadt.

Despite a worldwide economic crisis, the left showed few gains in the last decade as the centre right reacted quicker to the shift in the electoral base, writes Leonid Bershidsky.

DESPITE the sobering lessons inflicted on crystal ball gazers by Brexit, the elevation of President Trump and humiliation of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May in last June’s

Germany has the confidence and capacity to lead Europe, but, ahead of Angela Merkel’s expected re-election, that doesn’t mean its partners have to like it, writes John Lloyd.    

It’s response to Turkey’s jailing of a German human rights activist was to discourage tourists from going there and firms from investing there, says Mark Leonard

Before UK prime minister Theresa May surprised markets with a snap general election, 2017 was already the year of political risk for Europe.

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s allies in Bavaria stepped up criticism of her open-door refugee policy yesterday, with their leader demanding a cap of 200,000 migrants a year, about a fifth of last year’s level.

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s popularity has dropped abruptly over her handling of Europe’s refugee crisis, a poll for ARD television network has shown.

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership during the Greece crisis has given her conservatives a chance of winning an absolute majority if an election were held next week, an opinion poll yesterday showed.

Three respected political figures have combined to form Ireland’s first Social Democratic party but Kyran Fitzgerald wonders if they have a future.

Russia should be invited to rejoin a summit of the G7 industrial powers next weekend, the heads of two German business lobby groups were quoted as saying yesterday.

One in three Germans feels deceived by chancellor Angela Merkel regarding a row over spying on Germans, but almost half are not very interested in the whole affair, a poll showed.

Germany has halted its internet surveillance for the US’s National Security Agency (NSA) in response to a row over the BND intelligence agency’s co-operation with Washington.

German conservatives warned their Social Democrat (SPD) partners not to score points in a row over the activities of the BND intelligence agency after an attack on Chancellor Angela Merkel by the SPD chief threatened unity in the coalition.

German chancellor Angela Merkel clinched a coalition deal with the Social Democrats yesterday that preserved Berlin’s strict approach towards struggling European partners.

There will be no change to the German approach to the resolution of the eurozone crisis if the CDU/SPD parties form the next government, according to Financial Times’ associate editor, Quentin Peel.

The troika has ended its final review of the economy but wants the Government to address the repeated budget overruns in the health service.

The proposed financial transactions tax has the potential to do enormous damage to the eurozone’s financial services sector, according to one of the most senior members of the ECB, Christian Noyer.

Germany’s Social Democrats want to strip euro policymaking out of the finance ministry in chancellor Angela Merkel’s third term, according to three people familiar with the party’s negotiating strategy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s potential coalition partners, the Social Democrats, want to make a proposed financial transaction tax a requirement for participation in a European banking union.

In his first speech since agreeing to coalition talks with Angela Merkel’s conservatives, the leader of the Social Democrats delivered an impassioned defence of European bailouts, saying Germany’s own success hinged on that of its neighbours.

Ireland was advised not to apply for additional aid from the EU’s rescue fund as it exits the bailout programme by the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble.

Germany’s opposition Social Democrats threw up a new potential obstacle to a ‘grand coalition’ government with Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday ahead of a new round of talks, saying they would insist on a national minimum wage.

German chancellor Angela Merkel lost no time in approaching her Socialist counterparts to agree a grand coalition government following her resounding success at the polls.

Angela Merkel was on track to win a third term as chancellor in a German election after her conservatives scored their best result in decades, but it was unclear whether she could avoid being forced into a coalition with her leftist rivals.

Chancellor Angela Merkel looked on track to win a third term in this weekend’s election in Germany but faced a battle to preserve her centre-right majority and avert a potentially divisive coalition with her arch rivals, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

A new eurosceptical party is on the brink of entering the German parliament for the first time, an opinion poll showed, casting doubt on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bid to maintain her centre- right coalition and complicating her eurozone policy.

GERMAN chancellor Angela Merkel, an unflappable pastor’s daughter, is closing in on a third term in Sunday’s general election, cementing her title as the world’s most powerful woman.

Chancellor Angela Merkel says that Germany’s election in four days will be a referendum on the euro’s future stability, as she appealed to voters to reward her handling of the debt crisis with a third term.

Angela Merkel’s allies swept to victory in a state poll in Bavaria yesterday, winning enough support to regain the absolute majority they had lost in 2008 and boosting the chancellor and her conservatives a week before a German federal election.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has absolved herself of blame for the eurozone’s north-south split during the debt crisis, saying she has Europe’s best interests at heart when pressing the need to become globally competitive.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s challenger in the German election accused her in a television debate yesterday of crushing southern European countries with austerity, declaring her euro crisis strategy a failure.

German chancellor Angela Merkel sought to reassure voters that Greece would not need a debt write-down, but left open the option of more aid for Athens as she struggled to contain a dispute which could hurt her in next month’s election.

Germans sleep better, Bismarck once said, when they don’t know how sausages and laws are made.

Which group the chancellor’s party will be in coalition with is her biggest conundrum, says Noah Barkin

Investors piled into equities sending markets to two-year highs yesterday as most of the major macro-economic risks that threatened to derail the recovery now appear to be receding.

German politicians yesterday unanimously criticised the Deutsche Bank co-CEO Juergen Fitschen, following reports he had called a senior politician to complain about a raid on the bank’s Frankfurt headquarters last week.

Support for German chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives is at its highest level in five years, a poll showed, but the weak state of her coalition partner may complicate the formation of the next government.