Wolfgang Kubicki

The Social Democrats (SPD) party of Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz narrowly won the election in the eastern state of Brandenburg on Sunday.

The recent success of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in regional elections in Thuringia and their significant gain of over 30% in Saxony is causing considerable concern and backlash at the national level. Meanwhile, the governing coalition parties (SPD, Greens, and FDP) appear to have suffered significant losses.

"Earlier I was against the abolition of compulsory military service," said FDP deputy leader Wolfgang Kubicki. Military service turned the Bundeswehr into a people's army, he said.

Exploratory talks to form Germany’s next coalition government collapsed shortly before midnight on Sunday when the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) walked out of marathon negotiations.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's efforts to forge a three-way ruling coalition could stretch into the weekend after the parties missed Merkel's Thursday deadline and failed to reach agreement on key issues such as migration and finances, reported Reuters. 

An event Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim is planning to hold in Germany has drawn criticism from a wide array of German politicians, according to German media reports on Wednesday.