GERMANY: Angela Merkel, German chancellor, yesterday guided her brittle left-right coalition past the first in a series of potentially debilitating political obstacles by negotiating a compromise on controversial healthcare changes.
Emerging early yesterday from seven hours of talks with coalition leaders in her chancellery, a relieved-looking Ms Merkel said Germany was "still on course for wide-reaching reforms" to reshape a €143 billion healthcare system hit by rising costs and an ageing population.
The chancellor has seen her own popularity ratings and those of her Christian Democrats plummet in recent months, especially after the health reform proposals, first tabled in July, were attacked as badly conceived by health experts, business leaders and, most damagingly, by powerful regional barons from her own party.
The deal followed weeks of squabbling between the two parties on principles and technical aspects of the reform, with some politicians fearing the coalition could collapse.
Yet Peter Lösche, politics professor at Göttingen University, predicted that similar squabbles were extremely likely on measures to increase labour market flexibility and to simplify corporate taxes.