Quote Originally Posted by A.Saturnus
Angela Merkel will be heading a grand coalition in Germany. The SPD will get extra ministers instead. Schröder is at the end of his carrier. The question is, can the coalition accomplish anything, is it maybe just what Germany needs? Not surprisingly the opposition is unhappy.
Over the last couple of days I started to wonder if Schröder ever was serious in his insistance that he should remain chancellor. One could get the feeling that he played the stubborn guy to gain a very valuable bargaining chip to get some extra minister posts and to strengthen SPD-positions in the program of the new government.

Personally I am glad that we finally came to a result and any predictions whether this administration will get the act done are currently just reading in the crystal ball.
I sure hope that they use the fact that there is no more Bundesrat-veto to block decisions, and that they use the next years for some reforms of the Bundesrat and the Länder-elections (we definitely need to put an end to these omni-present elections - get some fixed sates for all elections).

In the end this will only be a period of transition and it will be interesting to see which party is able to benefit from this transition period - my guess is that of the two large parties it will no be the one that decides to block decisions in this coalitions...