But party leader Martin Schulz, who is opposed to alliance with Merkel’s CDU, wants members to be polled on the issue

Martin Schulz, the leader of Germany’s Social Democratic party, has said he will not stand in the way of his party forming a “grand coalition” with Angela Merkel’s conservatives, signalling a potential end to a lengthy deadlock over the formation of a new German government.



Schulz, who has persistently expressed his opposition to the continuation of a leftwing-conservative alliance, insisting German voters clearly showed their opposition to it at elections on 24 September when they gave the SPD its worst result since the second world war, has said he wants party members to be polled on the issue first.

Schulz was summoned to the office of the president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on Thursday evening for an emergency meeting to discuss how to avoid new elections following a collapse of coalition talks between Merkel’s CDU/CSU alliance, the pro-business FDP and the Greens last weekend.

Steinmeier had delivered a “dramatic appeal” to him, Schulz said, to drop his opposition to being part of a coalition, for the good of national stability.

Following Schulz’s meeting with Steinmeier, the SPD leadership met at party headquarters on Thursday evening for hours of talks which went on late into the night leaving Germany on tenterhooks.

German politics has been plunged into several days of uncertainty following the collapse of the talks, which broke down over issues related to the refugee crisis and environmental policies. The stalemate, Merkel’s biggest political crisis of her 12 years in office, has prompted speculation that a prolonged power vacuum in the continent’s largest economy could trigger instability across Europe.

Collapse of German coalition talks underlines Merkel's weaknesses Read more

Schulz signalled on Twitter on Friday afternoon that he would not ignore the president’s appeal. “Should this lead to us participating in whatever form in the formation of a government, the SPD’s members will take a vote on this,” he wrote.

Following the breakdown of talks aimed at forming a Jamaica coalition – so called because the participating parties’ colours resemble those of the Jamaican flag – the SPD has been under increasing pressure to back down from its previous insistence that it would not take part in a future government. Other options include a minority government, which the SPD has said it might be willing to support, or new elections, which all parties have insisted they wish to avoid.

Schulz said his party was not fixed on any of the solutions. “There’s no automatism [action without conscious intention] in any direction,” he said.

Steinmeier had earlier announced that he had invited Schulz, along with Angela Merkel and Horst Seehofer, the head of her Bavarian sister party, the CSU, for joint talks, which according to some sources will take place in the presidential palace, Bellvue, on Thursday.

The SPD has governed in coalition with Merkel since 2013. Polls have shown the electorate was largely against a repeat of the arrangement, but that following the breakdown of Jamaica talks, the idea has once more grown in favour.