Schaeuble Prods German Parties to End Deadlock as Elections Loom

Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany‘s de-facto elder statesman, called on parties to halt polarization and start building a government as Chancellor Angela Merkel raises the prospect of new elections to break the political stalemate.

Merkel‘s failed talks on forming a fourth-term coalition are thrusting her former finance minister and ally into an elevated role in his post as president of Germany‘s 709-seat lower house, which formally elects the chancellor. Two months after a national vote handed Merkel a new mandate but not a majority, policy makers are increasingly facing the fact that Europe‘s dominant country may be hamstrung for weeks or months.

„It is a test, but it‘s not a crisis of the state,“ Schaeuble, 75, said Tuesday in a speech to the Bundestag, which includes the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany for the first time. It‘s an „unusual situation“ that requires a spirit of compromise on all sides „to preserve the political decision-making ability that‘s rightly expected of us.“