“The stronger but also more dangerous partner would be the Social Democrats,” news website Die Zeit Online said.
“You can assume that this time they (the Social Democrats) won’t simply allow themselves to be made to look small any longer by Merkel.”
Meanwhile the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily said “the biggest hurdle” to a tie-up with the Greens had been removed after Merkel abruptly decided to exit nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.
Nevertheless negotiations would be “tough”. “The reservations are great, the climate in part embittered,” the Munich-based centre-left newspaper said.
After the party’s support crumbled to 8.4 percent, the Greens’ entire leadership announced Monday they would step down, paving the way for new elections to the board in October.
Volker Kauder, head of Merkel’s conservative parliamentary group, conceded on ARD public television that a coalition with the Greens would be “certainly very hard”.
Either way, based on past experience when coalition negotiations have taken on average around a month, observers foresee weeks of wheeling and dealing ahead.
“It will need a bit of time,” Merkel said Monday.
Political scientist Nils Diederich said many Germans backed a grand coalition.
“German voters are not looking for controversy, they want peace and quiet. And therefore a grand coalition would be best,” he said.
After the FDP’s worst-ever election defeat, its leader Philipp Roesler, who was Merkel’s economy minister, resigned as leader of the pro-business party whose other cabinet members included Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.
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