Conservative leader Angela Merkel pushed her demand to serve as Germany's next chancellor while Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder clung to his competing claim as they readied yesterday for tough negotiations aimed at ending the country's political crisis.
The two were to meet yesterday for a round of summit talks along with Franz Muentefering, the chairman of Schroeder's Social Democrats, and Merkel's fellow conservative leader Edmund Stoiber.
Both sides said that the haggling could last through Sunday before Germans know who their next leaders is. If Schroeder and Merkel can decide which of them will back off, both parties are to hold leadership meetings on Monday that could endorse the beginning of formal talks on a "grand coalition" of Germany's two biggest political parties.
"We believe that we will have results on Sunday evening that are firm," Muentefering told reporters.
Muentefering said his party was keeping its aim of governing "with Gerhard Schroeder at the helm" -- although he appeared to suggest that was an aspiration rather than a demand. Merkel stuck firmly to her own demand that the Social Democrats recognize her right, as the leader of the largest group in parliament, to become Germany's first female chancellor.
"We have always said that, to start [formal] coalition negotiations, a further condition must be fulfilled -- a basis of trust must be created," Merkel told reporters. "This basis of trust can only be created if certain rules are respected."
She also insisted that her conservative bloc should get the job of parliament president, which traditionally goes to the strongest parliamentary group. The post has featured in speculation over how Schroeder's party could be persuaded to back down.
Merkel refused to say what inducements she might offer the Social Democrats.
Muentefering was similarly tightlipped about the chances of his party's lawmakers accepting a Chancellor Merkel, noting that a coalition would have to be endorsed by a party convention.
The two sides have been forced toward a so-called "grand coalition" because voters ousted Schroeder's seven-year government of Social Democrats and Greens on Sept. 18 but also denied the conservatives a majority for a center-right coalition.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS