Merkel's Party Teams Up with Greens in German State
As German Chancellor Angela Merkel started a third term Tuesday, her conservative party also forged a landmark new alliance at the state level with the Greens party.
In the first such coalition to rule a large German state, Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in central Hesse which includes the financial capital Frankfurt, agreed to launch a joint government with the environmentalist party.
"The (coalition) contract has been finalized," said Volker Bouffier, the CDU premier of the state of six million people, paving the way for a joint government from January.
The pact is seen as raising the chances of a future national coalition between the CDU and the Greens, a party that emerged from the 1970s ecologist, peace and anti-nuclear movements.
Merkel adopted the long-standing core demand of the Greens after Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster when, bowing to public pressure, she decided to phase out nuclear power.
After winning September elections, the German leader held initial coalition talks with the Greens but in the end opted for a "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).
The Greens entered parliament in the 1980s in sneakers, handing out flowers, but have since becoming a mainstream party and ruled Germany with the SPD from 1998 to 2005.
They have previously teamed up with the CDU in the northern city-state of Hamburg, from 2008 to 2010, but had never previously joined forces with the conservatives in a larger state such as Hesse.
Source: Agence France Presse
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