German leaders set for Chancellor summit

Germany’s top political leaders were to meet today at a summit aimed at resolving their two-and-a-half-week stand-off over who will lead the country, with Angela Merkel’s conservatives hopeful Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will let go of the top job.

Schroeder and Franz Muentefering, the chairman of the chancellor’s Social Democrats, were expected to meet this evening with Merkel and her fellow conservative leader Edmund Stoiber.

The four leaders and senior aides agreed to the summit at a meeting yesterday that both sides indicated brought progress toward a new government. Neither, however, backed off competing claims to the chancellery.

Ahead of the summit, the Social Democrats, or SPD, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and Stoiber’s Bavaria-only Christian Social Union were holding separate leadership meetings.

Prospects of a quick resolution were unclear. Senior Christian Democrat Dieter Althaus said the summit could be continued tomorrow morning if necessary.

Another senior conservative, Christian Wulff, said his side’s demand for the chancellery and the parliament president’s job was “not negotiable.”

The latter post, which traditionally goes to the strongest group in parliament, has featured in speculation over how Schroeder’s party could be persuaded to back down.

“I believe we will have clarity this evening that the SPD is no longer insisting on Gerhard Schroeder’s chancellorship,” conservative politician Wolfgang Bosbach told Suedwestrundfunk radio.

“I believe that what is most important for him now is to get off his high horse without losing face.”

Social Democrat Andrea Nahles, however, stuck to her party’s line of recent days.

“Gerhard Schroeder should remain chancellor – that is the common position of the SPD and I stand by it,” she told NDR radio. Both sides have said that “this should be not just about people, but issues,” she added.

The two big parties have been forced toward a so-called “grand coalition” because voters ousted Schroeder’s seven-year government of Social Democrats and Greens on September 18, but also denied the conservatives a majority for a centre-right coalition. Both sides failed to recruit smaller parties to eke out a majority.

Party leaders say Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, needs a stable government quickly to tackle high unemployment and slow growth – and to support the country’s role as the European Union’s largest member.

Merkel says she, as the leader of the strongest group in parliament, should be chancellor. Her conservative group has 226 seats in the 614-seat lower house of parliament, four more than the Social Democrats.

Conservatives have insisted Schroeder’s party back off its claim to keep him as chancellor before entering talks on forming a coalition.

While Schroeder has signalled he would step down if his party tells him to, the Social Democrats have stuck to their claim that he should lead any new government after he led them to a better-than-expected election result. They insist on equal treatment in a coalition.

Schroeder said the sounding-out talks yesterday, the third such meeting, had shown “there is a basis for a grand coalition”.

Merkel, who would be Germany’s first female chancellor, said she was “more optimistic than pessimistic” after yesterday’s talks, which she said had gone “very successfully”.

“We have agreed that to clear up ... particularly the personnel question, the workings of a government and possibly some questions on content, there will be another summit,” Merkel said.