BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the man hoping to replace him, Friedrich Merz, held discussions in Berlin for around 30 minutes on Thursday following the collapse of the country's centre-left coalition.
The opposition leader arrived on foot at the Chancellery at 12:25 pm and left the government headquarters shortly after 1 pm. No details about the content or outcomes of the meeting have been revealed yet.
Merz is calling on Scholz to allow a new election to be organised much sooner than the chancellor is aiming for, with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader considering a possible election date in the second half of January.
Merz's CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the lower house of parliament,or Bundestag, unanimously urged the chancellor in a resolution on Thursday morning to table a vote of confidence immediately, and no later than the start of next week.
Scholz announced on Wednesday that he intends to table a vote of confidence in the Bundestag on January 15 and then aim for an early election at the end of March. In the afternoon, Merz also plans to meet German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at his official Berlin residence, Bellevue Palace, to discuss how to proceed.
Meanwhile, the leader of Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party, Markus Söder, has warned of a far more fundamental crisis in Germany following the collapse of the centre-left ruling coalition in Berlin.
"Now is not the time for games. If this fails, not only Germany but also democracy fails," Söder, who is also state premier of Bavaria, said, according to participants in an internal conference call of the CSU's executive committee, with a view to resolving the current crisis. Söder reportedly emphasised that he sees his party as being in election mode from now on. He asserted that the federal election must be held as soon as possible. — dpa
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