German Chancellor Angela Merkel can finally get down to formal negotiations on a new government after her prospective partners gave a hesitant green light. Negotiations between Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, its Bavaria-only sister, the Christian Social Union, and the Social Democrats are likely to start this week, though there's no timetable yet. If they result in a coalition agreement, that will be submitted to a ballot of the more than 440,000-strong membership of the Social Democrats, which will take about three weeks. Failure either in the coalition talks or in the Social Democrats' membership ballot would leave a conservative minority government or, more likely, a new election as the only options. A new election could be bad news for all concerned — particularly the Social Democrats, who already hit a post-World War II low in September's vote.

Source: ABC News January 22, 2018 07:41 UTC