Germany Facing a Return to the Grand Coalition

On Thursday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier received the two party leaders for a long discussion, but even in the days leading up to that meeting, it had become clear that the two were eagerly burying the hatchet to lay the groundwork for a possible coalition. Schulz and Merkel, together with Horst Seehofer, who leads the Bavarian conservatives, now intend to explore the possibility of slapping together another governing coalition - the same "grand coalition" that voters so clearly rejected in the general election in late September.

As a group, Germans are thought to value political stability. But a repeat of the SPD-conservative coalition is the kind of stability that wouldn't be good for the country. The last four years have shown that a grand coalition is a static alliance, one that is good at spending money but not as adept at moving projects forward - aside from the project of right-wing populism, of course.

Deputy SPD head Olaf Scholz said recently that a rebirth of the grand coalition would "have negative consequences for our democracy." It would also mean that the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be the strongest party in opposition. That means it would always have the privilege in parliament of delivering the first rebuttal to Merkel's speeches.

Nevertheless, for the leaders of the parties involved, a grand coalition isn't completely unattractive
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For Merkel, it represents the best opportunity to secure her power, a motive that has long been important to her. And SPD head Martin Schulz already seems to be practicing the arguments he hopes to use at next week's party congress to convince unwilling delegates of the utility of another alliance with Merkel's conservatives.

Read more: Germany Facing a Return to the Grand Coalition - SPIEGEL ONLINE

The Netherlands: Going Dutch; Netherlands Pains To Find New Government And Might Embrace Christian Traditionalists - by Marcel Michelson

 More than three months after indecisive parliamentary elections, Dutch political parties are still at loggerheads to find a government with majority backing in parliament.

Following several permutations, and excluding the ultra-right PVV party of populist Geert Wilders, the next government looks set to become a centre-right coalition with the CHU Christian traditionalists. Perhaps it is wise to name a neutral cabinet instead.

While some people in Britain and France would like to see a more proportional electoral system like in the Netherlands, the Dutch elections resulted in a myriad of 13 elected parties splitting 150 seats out of 28 parties that participated.

The VVD liberals of Prime Minister Mark Rutte lost five percent points of the votes but remained the biggest party with 33 seats, ahead of the PVV that obtained 20 seats, Christian CDA at 19, centrist D66 also at 19 and Green Left at 14 seats, a gain of 10. SP also had 14 seats.

Read more: Going Dutch; Netherlands Pains To Find New Government And Might Embrace Christian Traditionalists