Germany’s Angela Merkel said she was optimistic her conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats could join forces as they started talks on forming a new government and reviving the ‘grand coalition’.
It marked an attempt to break an impasse more than three months after the country’s election.
Mrs Merkel’s conservative Union bloc and the Social Democrats have run Germany together for the past four years.
German chancellor Angela Merkel greets Martin Schulz, leader of the Social Democrats, in Berlin
But the Social Democrats vowed to go into opposition after a disastrous election result on September 24, and only reluctantly reconsidered after Mrs Merkel’s attempt to build a coalition with two smaller parties collapsed in November.
The effort to form a government has already become post-Second World War Germany’s longest.
The week of meetings between Merkel’s conservative alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD) will examine whether both sides have enough common ground to begin formal coalition negotiations towards a new government by March or April.
‘I am going into these talks with optimism. At the same time it is clear to me that we will have an enormous amount of work in front of us over the next few days but we are willing to take it on and to bring a good result,’ Merkel told journalists as she arrived at the SPD’s headquarters for the meeting.
‘I think that it can be done. We will work very swiftly and very intensively,’ she added.
The talks are not without pitfalls – including tricky questions surrounding the more than a million asylum seekers who have arrived in Germany since 2015.
The far-right anti-immigration AfD capitalised on growing misgivings in Germany over the new arrivals, winning more than 90 parliamentary seats in the watershed election.
Anxious to stem the haemorrhage to the far right, the conservative wing of Merkel’s party as well as her Bavarian allies CSU are championing a tougher stance on immigration – including demands that are unpalatable to the SPD.
With an eye on a regional election in Bavaria later this year, where current polls show that the CSU could lose its absolute majority, the party wants financial handouts to asylum seekers reduced.
Following several violent crimes involving refugees of uncertain age who claimed to be minors, the party also wants medical tests to determine if adult migrants are posing as under-18s.
Nevertheless, CSU chief Horst Seehofer voiced his determination to find a deal with the SPD.
‘We must find an agreement,’ he said Sunday as he entered into the exploratory talks.
SPD chief Martin Schulz meanwhile signalled that his party was going into the talks with an open mind, while determined to extract key concessions on social welfare reforms.
‘We’re not drawing any red lines, but we want as many red policies in Germany implemented as possible,’ he said, in a reference to his party’s colour.