After weeks of coalition talks the liberal FDP walked away from the table, saying it was ‘better not to govern than to govern in a bad way’. The failure of the talks is Germany’s biggest political upheaval in many years. The talks collapsed as the parties could not reconcile their ideas on energy and above all, migration. As the ‘Jamaica coalition’ of the Greens, FDP and Merkel’s CDU was the only logical outcome of the elections this year, an uncertain time for Germany and indeed Europe has arrived.

The social democratic SPD is adamant in not getting into another coalition with the CDU, and the AfD is ruled out by all the other parties. A minority government could be a possibility but the country has no post-war experience with this phenomenon. It is now up to Merkel and her CDU to take the lead to stabilise the situation and to break the deadlock, either by resuming talks, holding new elections or forming a minority government.

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