Schroeder, Merkel remain firm on claiming chancellorship

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his challenger Angela Merkel, concluding their first meeting on Thursday after Sunday's election, remained firm on claiming the mandate to form a new government.

Both claimed they had the right to be chancellor after neither Schroeder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) nor Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won a majority in Sunday's general elections.

Following the Schroeder-Merkel meeting, SPD Chairman Franz Muentefering said his goal was a government with Schroeder as chancellor.

Merkel reiterated the position she made on Sunday after the vote. "We made clear that given the election result the Christian Democratic alliance is responsible for setting up the government," she told reporters.

The two leaders also discussed the possibility of a grand coalition of the SPD and the CDU, which is supported by only 25 percent of the voters according to an Emnid poll of 1,000 people for N24 television Thursday.

The poll also showed that 47 percent of respondents want Merkel to be chancellor while 44 percent support Schroeder.

On Wednesday, Germany's Green Party agreed to hold talks with Merkel on forming a coalition government, but remained skeptical of the possibility.

Merkel warned that there were huge policy differences between the Greens and her conservatives.

"We fully agree it will be difficult," Merkel told reporters after talks with its partner Free Democratic Party (FDP) on Thursday. "The differences in party program are enormous."

"We want to hold exploratory talks, but these are not coalition negotiations," the Green Party's co-chairman, Claudia Roth, told reporters after a meeting with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) on Wednesday.

The Green Party, which got 8.1 percent of votes in Sunday's general election, is now a junior coalition party of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's SPD.

Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats and sister Christian Social Union (CSU), which won 35.2 percent of votes in the election, is seeking to cooperate with the Green Party and has invited the party leaders to join coalition talks on Friday.

The CDU/CSU's junior partner FDP got 9.8 percent of votes. The alliance needs a third party to form a coalition government.

Roth said the Greens had "deep skepticism" over cooperation with the conservative CDU/CSU.

"We Greens have made clear that policies come before power," she said.

Reinhard Buetikofer, co-leader of the Green Party, said his party is ready to go into opposition. "We won't compromise on the content of our policies."

Joschka Fischer, the current foreign minister, announced on Tuesday that he will not lead the Greens in parliament in order to make room for younger people.

A possible coalition government made up of the CDU/CSU with black color, the Greens Party and the FDP with yellow color is dubbed the "Jamaica coalition" because Jamaica has a black-yellow-green flag.

The SPD has said it wanted to cooperate with the FDP to form a traffic-light coalition (red-green-yellow), but the FDP refused to sit together with the Greens.

Source: Xinhua