Steinbrück tipped to challenge Merkel Peer Steinbrück, the former German finance minister, will be the Social Democrat challenger to Angela Merkel, German chancellor, at next year's general election, according to media reports in Berlin. The move, just 12 months before the poll is due, ends months of speculation that has seen popular support for the centre-left SPD trailing behind the chancellor's centre-right Christian Democratic Union. It will pit Ms Merkel against a sharp-tongued and sharp-witted opponent who knows her well, having served as finance minister during her first "grand coalition" government from 2005-2009. He was responsible for Germany's action to contain the banking crisis following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, but since being in opposition he has sharply criticised Ms Merkel's management of the eurozone crisis as ungenerous and excessively focused on austerity. Mr Steinbrück's candidacy is expected to be confirmed by an emergency meeting of the SPD national executive committee on Monday. A statement will be made on Friday afternoon by the "troika" of SPD leaders: Sigmar Gabriel, national chairman, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, parliamentary leader, as well as Mr Steinbrück. Until now, all three were considered potential challengers to Ms Merkel. The former finance minister, who is 65, was also previously state premier in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, and is seen as the most combative of the three leaders, and the most popular with voters. But he is the least popular within SPD ranks as a representative of the party's rightwing, and a man who strictly controlled government spending when he was in office. News of his candidacy emerged first on Thursday on the website of Bild, the newspaper, and was swiftly confirmed by other media. Earlier in the week Mr Steinbrück unveiled a series of proposals for stricter banking regulation, serving clear notice that he intends to make the subject a major plank of the party's election platform. He is called for a €200bn fund to be financed by the finance industry to bail out any bank that gets into difficulty in future, and for a law to split investment from retail banking - a move that would most affect Deutsche Bank, a universal bank that is also by far the country's largest. According to the latest opinion poll in Stern magazine, produced by the Forsa polling agency, support for the SPD was flatlining on 26 per cent, against 38 per cent for Ms Merkel's CDU. But the SPD's proposed coalition partner, the Green party, was on 12 per cent, whereas the liberal Free Democrats, Ms Merkel's present allies, were on just 4 per cent - below the 5 per cent threshold needed to win seats in parliament. If those polling figures persist, it would make another "grand coalition" of CDU and SPD the most likely outcome, with Mr Steinbrück serving as vice-chancellor to Ms Merkel.