Party chiefs reached an in-principle deal to start formal coalition talks that could lead to a new government

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives reached a “breakthrough” deal Friday with the country’s second biggest party, the Social Democrats, toward building a new coalition government, sources close to the negotiations said. In the all-night talks in Berlin, the party chiefs -Merkel of the Christian Democrats as well as Social Democrats (SPD) leader Martin Schulz and the head of Merkel’s Bavarian allies, Horst Seehofer- and their negotiators hammered out a 28-page joint paper that will form the basis for the talks ahead. But the breakdown of talks to form a three-way coalition between conservatives, the center-right business-friendly Free Democratic Party and the Greens (FDP) put the grand coalition back on the table as the only other realistic chance for a parliamentary majority.
The CDU/CSU (Christian Democrats) and SPD (Social Democrats) agree on a blueprint for formal negotiations on a new "grand coalition" government after the September 2017 federal election.