Politics of Germany

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos is due in Berlin on Friday for talks with his German counterpart Olaf Scholz that are expected to focus on Greek reform efforts and the prospects for lightening the country's debt burden.

Debt relief for Greece is an issue that has provoked divisions in the new German government.

The issue of easing the Greek debt is creating friction in the new German government, with the Financial Council of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat Union (CDU) launching an attack on Thursday against Social Democrat Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

She's been chancellor of Germany for 12 years, reduced to a caretaker for the past six months until she could form a new government. Today (March 21), Angela Merkel gave the first speech of her latest term to parliament, addressing the controversial topic of migrants and their place in German society.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry on March 21 criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel's remarks on Turkey's ongoing "Operation Olive Branch." 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Warsaw on Monday for talks with Polish leaders aimed at improving relations which have been strained by disagreements on rule of law, immigration and refugee policy, and Poland's new Holocaust law, as well as a new gas pipeline.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has accused the European Union of adopting a patronizing stance in talks with eastern European members about the distribution of migrants.

The German Bundestag has re-elected Angela Merkel as the country's chancellor on Wednesday. She received 364 out of 688 valid votes in the 709-member Bundestag.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, bruised by half a year of post-election coalition haggling, was narrowly confirmed by parliament on March 14 to her fourth and likely final term at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy.

Angela Merkel will be formally elected chancellor of Germany by parliament on Wednesday, the fourth time she will lead the government since 2005. If she sees out a full term, Ms Merkel will have spent 16 years in office, equalling the record set by Helmut Kohl between 1982 and 1998.

Chancellor Angela Merkel declined to say on Monday whether she favoured a German becoming the next president of the European Central Bank after incumbent Mario Draghi's term ends in 2019, Reuters.