Merkel tries to form coalition after big win

(Vatican Radio) German Chancellor Angela Merkel is working on forming her coalition after scoring the biggest win in 20 years for the German centre-right on Sunday, with over 40% of the vote.

“It is incredible,” said Father Bernd Hagenkord, SJ, the director of Vatican Radio's German Programme. “Six parties [want] to enter parliament and only one party got nearly half of the members of parliament.”

Merkel’s traditional coalition partners, the Free Democrats, failed to meet the threshold to enter Parliament, so she is trying to repeat the Grand Coalition with the centre-left Social Democratic Party which governed during her first term.

Father Hagenkord told Vatican Radio the election means that the leadership of Angela Merkel will continue as the EU faces its economic challenges, “strong as ever.”

The priest also points out Germans view Merkel differently than other citizens of the European Union.

“In Europe, she is like a strong leader demanding cuts, demanding budgets, demanding less spending,” Father Hagenkord said. “For us, she is more like the person who has not really achieved anything on the political platform she started four years ago, but is trying to solve the problems we are having right now.”

Listen to the full interview by Charles Collins with Father Hagenkord: