The traffic-light coalition: a new start for Germany?

New government expected to be sworn in next week, signalling end of Angela Merkel’s 16-year rule

Members of new German coalition
Christian Lindner, Olaf Scholz, Annalene Baerbock and Robert Habeck
(Image credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The “traffic-light” coalition is a go-go, said Marcel Fürstenau in Deutsche Welle (Bonn). After two months of intense negotiations following September’s German federal elections, a groundbreaking deal has been struck to form the country’s next government.

The victorious centre-left SPD (red) will provide the next chancellor, Olaf Scholz. It will share power with the Greens (whose co-leader, Annalena Baerbock, is to be foreign minister) and the yellow-flagged, free-market FDP, whose leader Christian Lindner will serve as finance minister.

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